Brighton & Hove City Council
Using feedback from the anti-racism Community Advisory Group, from community groups and individuals and data, the following priority actions have been identified and prioritised for the duration of the strategy.
We will work as one council on 3 core priority actions with each directorate identifying how they will take forward these actions specifically related to their work and service delivery. The directorate level actions will evolve and may change over the lifetime of the strategy, in response to services’ learning, communities’ feedback, and evaluation of their impact.
Increase and improve their communication and engagement with Black & Racially Minoritised residents, service users, customers, tenants aligned to a new engagement strategy being developed for the whole council. Our engagement should take nuanced and intersectional and used proactively to show changes to council policy and practice.
Improve the collection, analysis, and application of qualitative, quantitative, and intersectional data regarding Black & Racially Minoritised residents (be they service users, customers, tenants) to better understand their access and experience of services, using this proactively to inform service improvement.
Identify, review and co-produce key policies, plans, strategies, and work, embedding anti-racism principles to better understand their impact on outcomes for Black & Racially Minoritised people, with intersectional insights. This is done alongside our own intersectional anti-racism council-wide learning and development.
Support services such as the council’s communities and equality team, corporate policy team and human resources service including learning and development will provide advice, guidance, support, expertise, development opportunities, co-ordination and sharing of learning.
The council consists of 5 directorates:
You can find out more about how we are structured and how we deliver our work and services to all those who live, work and visit the city through our various Directorates and corporate and directorate plans.
Access to affordable, safe, and secure housing is a challenge for many residents in the Southeast of England. Demand far outstrips supply. An individual’s accommodation status is fundamental to their sense of safety, belonging and well-being.
Data and community feedback identifies the risk of homeless as a key area for more detailed exploration for anti-racist actions, including how we prevent homelessness and support those at risk of homelessness. We need to be more aware of the nuanced circumstances that may contribute to the risk of homelessness for intersectional Black & Racially Minoritised communities.
Black African, Black Caribbean and Bangladeshi residents are overrepresented in temporary accommodation while White British residents are underrepresented. The anti-racism priority is to understand why and how the council can respond.
We also need to take an anti-racist approach to the way we support people to maintain their tenancies, respond to racial abuse that happens on council property and proactively cultivate positive relations with Black & Racially Minoritised tenants.
Our priority actions are to:
Support to Black and Racially Minoritized community and voluntary groups has generated much conversation, for a long time in communities, in the community and voluntary sector and in the council. The council is mindful that groups and residents want the support to be provided by an organisation led by Black & Racially Minoritised people. The council recently allocated £100,000 to strengthening the ‘BME’ community and voluntary sector (CVS). A plan for the investment of this funding into infrastructure support for the ‘BME’ CVS is being develop with oversight from the Community Advisory Group.
The corporate equalities team works across the whole council while structurally sitting within the Communities, Equality and Third Sector Team. We work in partnership with HR and Organisational Development, individual directorate Business Managers and key leadership teams including our council and directorate equality delivery groups and representatives. We influence for change and for equity, accessibility, anti-racism, and intersectionality to become a central consideration across how we engage, what data we look at, and how we think, work, and deliver services. Our work is decisively supported by our CEO and senior leaders across the council with an extremely strong appetite and commitment given to all inclusion work.
Equalities work has been growing year on year along with the dedicated resources we have committed to see through this work, and the organisation-wide resources and capacity-building we continue to invest in recognising the importance of equality, diversity, and inclusion work. Our own learning as a young team established in March 2022, will be focussed on further developing our intersectional skillsets, knowledge, and embedding equalities and inclusion considerations and principles across all directorates and teams within the Council.
Our initial focus will be on establishing and improving our foundational processes and corporate alignment. This will support a ‘one council’ approach, embedding cohesive working and behaviours across all our Directorates and Services, while linking into the work our HR and Organisational Development teams are already doing.
Re-vamping and enhancing equality impact assessments to improve internal accountability and driving more equitable outcomes through process will address any current inconsistencies in practice.
Establishing improved ethnicity and equality monitoring data standards and language translation and interpretation support is critical to ensuring we have tools that enable more culturally and disability-sensitive practice.
Learning through co-produced case study-based learning that is intersectionally sound and nuanced by different protected characteristics, teaching our staff how to convert mandatory and equality training and law into action through better equitable decision-making, thinking, language, and proactive practice is a critical foundational focus among others.
Our priority actions are to:
According to 2018 City Tracker data, only 48% of ‘BME’ residents feel safe after dark in their local area. This drops to 35% of ‘BME’ residents feeling very safe after dark in the city centre.
Black & Racially Minoritised women may be exposed to more forms of violence and abuse because of cultural or faith-based activity that intersects with their ethnicity. For example, Black & Racially Minoritised women and girls are more likely be exposed to honour-based abuse, female genital mutilation and forced marriage than White women and girls.
This is in addition to domestic abuse that is experienced by women across all racial groups. Only 3% of reports to the MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) were from Black & Racially Minoritised people, compared to the national average of 13%.
(The MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) is a conference that brings together agencies and practitioners from across the statutory and voluntary sector, to share information on high risk domestic abuse cases and develop a support plan to reduce the risk to the individual survivor and children. Nationally, the MARAC model is acknowledged to be the most effective way to reduce risk significantly and keep survivors safer)
Additionally, women with an ethnicity other than White have been less likely to appear in police recorded statistics as victims of crime (Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Brighton & Hove report, page 108). Community intelligence and expertise in the area points to severe lack of reporting in instances of violence against women and girls from Black & Racially Minoritised diasporas.
Gender based violence should be considered alongside disability, sexuality and ethnicity. Across cultures and faiths, disability can be a factor in honour-based abuse, domestic violence, and other forms of abuse. The council is also aware that a person’s sexuality can be a factor in being a victim of abuse as cultural traditions and faith beliefs may motivate abusers. The council will continue to respect the intersectionality of victims in its approach when taking anti-racism actions.
Our priority actions are to:
One of the next steps in the Libraries Service anti-racism work is rebalancing its stock of books to be fully representative of the communities it serves and increasing awareness of the diversity of books. Increasing representation is vital in ensuring residents from non-white diasporas see themselves reflected in our libraries.
There is also a commitment to increase collections of books in community languages to support the Library of Sanctuary work the service is committed to and to increase the good practice to support Black & Racially Minoritised groups and residents to access library facilities and resources. It is important library staff have regular bespoke training on anti-racist practise and how that is implemented in library services. This will include, but is not limited to, how to identify racism when experienced by a service user and how to support service users who have English as an additional language.
Our priority actions are to:
Addressing racial injustice is a central part of children’s social work practice. Recognising and challenging the impact of inequality and oppression are fundamental to our model of relationship-based social work.
The council has been part of the Workforce Race Equality Standards for Social Care (WRES) initiative since 2021. (The WRES is a collaborative project involving 18 local authorities. It is a joint initiative across adult and children social care and aims to support organisations to understand the composition of their workforce and the experience of staff from Black & Racially Minoritised communities)
As part of the WRES we consider data relating to the ethnicity of our workforce and the relative experience of workers from different communities in terms of issues such as continuing professional development, disciplinary processes, or the experience of bullying and harassment. We have developed an action plan in direct response to our involvement in the WRES initiatives and will continue to deliver against it.
The Anti-Racist Project Board was set up at the end of 2019. The board meets monthly and is chaired by a Black social worker and includes representatives of our Black managers, foster carers and practitioners, as well as the ‘BME’ Workers Forum, alongside senior managers. An Anti-Racist Lead Practitioner was appointed on a permanent basis in 2020. This role focuses on supporting social workers to address race and racism with families.
Our priority actions are to:
Education is clearly a key pillar in the pursuit of becoming an anti-racist city. Race is a social construct. “There is no such thing as race. None. There is just the human race – scientifically, anthropologically.” (Toni Morrison quotes in Toni Morrison's Most Powerful Quotes On Racism)
People’s experiences of racism are very real, and perpetrators of racism use learned behaviour to cause harm either directly or indirectly. If racism can be learned then it can be unlearnt through anti-racist teaching, education, and policy.
Find a summary of activities that the council’s Anti-Racism Education Strategy commits to.
Our priority actions are to:
The council also recognises the importance of ensuring that Black & Racially Minoritised adults have access to education and qualification opportunities. The council launched the Adult Education Hub in September 2021 to provide courses and education opportunities for lifelong learning. There is already a diverse range of residents that use the Adult Education Hub including residents from the Black diaspora, Syrian residents, Iranian, Afghani & Hong Kongese residents. Nevertheless, extra focus is being given to ensuring and increasing access to Hub specifically for Black & Racially Minoritised people.
Our priority actions are to:
The council’s Corporate Policy, Partnerships and Scrutiny team works across all council services providing overarching policy for the organisation and all council services to deliver under. This team has the capacity to be an ally and support the embedding of anti-racist best practise into all services they are working with or corporate policy they produce. They also have capacity to engage in dialogue with private and public sector partners across the city to share anti-racist best practice.
Our priority actions are to:
The Race in the Workplace: the McGregor Review (2017), identified that securing full representation and diversity across the labour market would add over £20 billion to our economy. (Race in the Work Place: the McGregor-Smith Review, p.2)
The council has a budget of £1 billion per year. 40% of that or £400 million per year is overseen by Procurement and distributed to third party suppliers. With this level of influence over the local economy, instilling anti-racist best practise into our procurement processes could contribute significantly to greater diversity in our local labour market. This is partly addressed in our Equalities in Procurement policy. A first step is to review this policy through an anti-racist lens and update according to guidance from governing bodies such as CIPD and others.
We also want to ensure a diverse range of suppliers have access to council contracts. There are however certain legal implications that limit our actions. For example, the Public Contract Regulations Act 2015 makes it clear that our procurement procedures shall not have the effect of creating unjustified obstacles to the opening of public procurement to competition. This means, we cannot ringfence contracts for Black & Racially Minoritised owned businesses or give greater weight to businesses based on the demographic of their shareholders.
What we can do is offer bespoke training sessions to Black & Racially Minoritised owned businesses about how the council procures contractors and look at different ways to advertise these contracts that would reach more diverse local businesses. Contracts for goods and services up to £213,000 including VAT and contracts for works up to £4.3 million can be advertised locally. The definition of local is at the discretion of the council. 50% of total annual spend is to providers in the city or surrounding areas. Ensuring equal access for Black & Racially Minoritised businesses to council contracts is a key first step in introducing anti-racist best practice into our work with suppliers.
Another priority in procurement is to ensure diverse representation in panellists making decisions and anti-racism training completed by them. Harvard Business Review study found that when at least one member of a team has traits in common with an end user or client the entire team better understands them. (Sourcing Diverse Suppliers, CIPD)
Representation of staff is something that has been acknowledged across the board and our Workforce and Learning and Development teams are working hard to improve this. A step forward would be ensuring those making procurement decisions have completed Anti-racism and equality diversity and inclusion training.
Our priority actions are to:
To become an anti-racist council, we must model the culture that we want to build in the city. We must mirror the diversity represented in our city, ensuring that people from our Black & Racially Minoritised communities feel a sense of belonging and can thrive when working at the council. Key priorities are continuing to work to diversify our workforce at all levels, embed anti-racist best practice into our recruitment process, and support diverse talent within the organisation.
The next step to focus on under the Fair and Inclusive Action Plan is to review and refresh our Anti-Racist training offer to staff and increase participation levels. An anti-racist culture relies on a well-trained workforce, fully aware of all the nuances of racism. It is also important to ensure all training is accessible to those with varying work patterns and styles of learning.
Our priority actions are to:
The council’s current Economic Strategy runs between 2018 to 2023 and focuses on prioritising local wealth and the local economy. The updating of the council’s Economic Strategy provides a timely opportunity to embed anti-racism best practice into the future ways we intend to support our local economy, businesses, and residents. The council understands that we cannot prioritise local wealth and economy without outlining what that means for businesses owned by Black and Racially Minoritized people.
As part of the data insight to inform the refresh of the economic strategy a mapping exercise of Black & Racially Minoritised businesses in the city will be undertaken sensitively. This mapping exercise is important to ensure robust data for the economic strategy and it will have a direct, practical implication on the support that other services, such as Procurement, can provide to Black & Racially Minoritised owned businesses.
The council is aware of a 2020 report by British Business Bank which highlighted that Black & Racially Minoritised entrepreneurs experience far worse outcomes in their business journey than their White counterparts:
“Black business owners have median turnover of just £25,000, compared to £35,000 for White business owners... only half of Black entrepreneurs meet their non-financial aims, compared to nearly 70% of White entrepreneurs. Those from Asian and Other Ethnic Minority backgrounds have better outcomes than Black entrepreneurs. However, they have a substantially lower success rate for starting a business and see less success overall compared to White entrepreneurs.” (Alone, Together: Entrepreneurship and Diversity in the UK, Olivia Wyman, page 5).
Community engagement points to flourishing small business ownership by Black & Racially Minoritised residents in the city. A recent council funded networking event for Brighton's Black community returned a survey that showed over half of those who completed the survey were freelance or self-employed. (BARCO, Black Networking Event Survey, 2022).
Spreading the word about the Business Intellectual Property Centre in Black & Racially Minoritised networks is vital in increasing the diversity of entrepreneurs using the BIPC.
Out priority actions are:
One of the areas Brighton & Hove City Council are working on to address economic disparity is in the access to emergency food for Black & Racially Minoritised communities. Both national and local data points to disproportionality in Black and Racially Minortised people accessing emergency food. This was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership surveyed people who have been in receipt of emergency food parcels and people who considered themselves ‘struggling to afford food’. The survey found that 15% of respondents were from Black & Racially Minoritised backgrounds. (Summary of Key Findings for people in food poverty Brighton & Hove – BAME Supplementary report September 2020)
Low income was mentioned as one of the main reasons respondents who experience racism needed to access emergency food. We are aware that Black & Racially Minoritised people are overrepresented in the lower salary pay grades nationally, locally and in our council.
Local data suggests that there is a huge disparity in unemployment rates and economic activity amongst Black & Racially Minoritised communities in relation to White British residents. At the time of the 2011 census, Black African residents had an unemployment rate of 18.7% and Gypsy or Irish traveller communities had an unemployment rate of 15.3% - these are over twice the city average of 7.3%. And, although economic activity rates between white British and ‘BME’ residents are very similar, hovering at around 66 to 67%, there are great differences within Racially Minoritised groups in the city. You can find these statistics in the Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Brighton & Hove report.
All this builds on the local knowledge we already had from focus groups delivered on the same topic of emergency food access. Those focus groups, delivered in 2018, raised concerns over awareness and accessibility of emergency food in the city. (Focus Group Understanding ‘BME’ Poverty 2018)
This suggests that Black & Racially Minoritised residents are at a disadvantage in accessing emergency food in Brighton & Hove and supports the need for specific Anti-racism work in this area.
In November 2021, the decision was made to fund an emergency food needs assessment specifically for Black & Racially Minoritised. The aim of this is to build a thorough understanding of the nuances of the emergency food needs of the city’s Black & Racially Minoritised communities, with particular focus on access to foods of cultural relevance and the food banks available that provide these foods. Next step in this piece of work is to consider the findings and create actions to address the disparities identified.
Our priority actions are to:
Brighton & Hove City Council provides sports facilities in Brighton & Hove which are both popular and essential in providing opportunities for health, wellbeing, and leisure activities.
The council currently has seven indoor leisure facilities which include three swimming pools. These are all operated by Freedom Leisure a not-for-profit Trust on behalf of council.
The Active Communities Plan (ACP) – is a partnership between Brighton & Hove City Council and Freedom Leisure which aims to provide access to the leisure centres in the city for everyone in Brighton and Hove. Sessions and engagement with intersectional minoritised communities helps to increase participation in sport and physical activity in the city in line with the objectives in the council’s physical activity strategy.
Our priority actions are to:
Brighton & Hove offers a rich selection of places to visit across our museum and heritage sites, for both visitors and residents. The city is a centre of culture with major events taking place across the year.
Within the heart of the city lies the Royal Pavilion Estate. This includes a royal palace and regency gardens, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, and sitting alongside is the Brighton Dome and Corn Exchange. In addition, there are three other museum and heritage sites across the city, each with a unique offer. Since 2020, the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust manage and operate the museum and heritage sites. We pledge to ensure our museums and heritage sites align with our status as an anti-racist council. We will achieve this through working closely with the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust (RMPT) and with any additional artistic and creative commissions and/or partnerships.
Brighton & Hove is known internationally as a centre of creativity. We are one of the most dynamic and innovative creative clusters in the UK and home to hundreds of artists and creative producers. We will collaborate with the cultural community to lead on anti-racist practices in the city, prioritising access for artists and audiences. Council-led initiatives and partnerships will address the historical lack of diverse representation which exists nationally in the cultural sector. Brighton & Hove City Council is proud to support and commission public art, with a new public art strategy launched in 2022.
Our priority actions are to:
19% of ‘BME’ residents travel to work by bus, compared to 13% of White British residents. This is not of significant concern and supports the council’s priority for more residents using sustainable transport.
Its significance is in the experiences of racism while using the city’s buses. For example, the council is aware, through community engagement that many Muslim women have been verbally abused by other customers while travelling by bus. The impact of experiencing intersectional racist abuse – for one’s skin colour, nationality, and faith – is extremely traumatic.
There is extensive work ongoing to address racism experienced by customers on buses. The council are working closely with Brighton & Hove buses, which delivers 97% of bus services in the city, to address racism experienced on their buses. Most of the work focuses on informing customers of ways to report racism. Brighton & Hove Buses have produced informative hate crime posters and provide local charity Racial Harassment Forum with free poster space on buses to inform customers of ways to report racism and hate crime.
Bus drivers have been provided with a clear hate crime policy which includes information about what drivers should do to keep customers and themselves safe, and what to do if the victim of racism does not want to report a hate incident/crime. The company also has an Accessibility and Communities team and a Safeguarding team which works to prevent and protect residents from harm, engaging with Black & Racially Minoritised resident to understand their experience and to design a response.
As Brighton & Hove Buses is a private organisation, the council is limited in the measures it can take to directly change policy. Nevertheless, the council’s transport service is committed to ongoing dialogue with the bus company about reducing and alleviating the impact of racism on our city’s buses and embedding anti-racism principles in transport policies.
At present, the council is unclear on the experience of Black & Racially Minoritised residents of its parking services. This is because of a lack of national and local data and minimal community engagement on this topic. The first step forward is a planned and systemic review of parking policies and procedures and engagement with Black & Racially Minoritised residents to understand their experience of the service. This may include but is not limited to the use of parking permits, parking zoning, access to disabled parking and the process for challenging parking charge notices.
The transport service is also committed to establishing a workforce race equality standard like the work being carried out by the council’s children and adults social work teams.
Our priority actions are to: