Less than 1% of council staff are ethnic

Less than 0.6 per cent of staff hired by South Lanarkshire Council in 2018-19 were black and minority ethnic (BME) applicants.

More than 32,000 people applied for jobs with the council last year with 371 applications (1.14 per cent) from BME candidates.

However, just 26 BME applicants (0.52 per cent) were hired - six less than in 2017-18.

Currently, black and minority ethnic (BME) employees make up 0.98 per cent of South Lanarkshire Council staff.

Figures revealed at the council’s equal opportunities forum on Wednesday, October 30 found that 96.24 per cent of the council’s workforce classed their ethnicity as white.

Alyson Bell, team leader of consultation, organisational development and equality told the forum that the BME Employees and Recruitment report was“not a doom and gloom”report but that the council was“fairly representative of the population”.

In South Lanarkshire, approximately 3.5 per cent of the population is from a minority ethnic community, compared with just 0.98 per cent of the council’s workforce.

However, the most recent population estimates from 2011 and 2014 are no longer “reliable”as they are“quite dated”while 3.36 per cent of the council’s workforce did not disclose or did not enter their ethnicity.

BME employees on a grade one salary earned on average £18,482.94 - £308.58 a year less than their white counterparts.

However, BME employees on grade two to grade five salaries earn more on average than white employees in the same salary band.

The report did not detail how many of the council’s BME employees were in each salary band.

In the report, executive director for finance and corporate resources Paul Manning said: “The council has a duty under the Equality Act to gather and use employee information.

“To comply with the duty, everyone who applies for employment with the council is asked to provide information relating to sex (gender), gender identity, marital status, religion or belief, national identity, ethnic group, disability and sexual orientation.

“It should be noted that, although the legislation requires that the monitoring questions are asked, there is no obligation to answer them. To take account of this, there is a ‘prefer not to say’option available for all the equality questions.

“There are no current population figures with the last reliable figures being from the 2011 census records. However, figures provided by the council’s central research unit for 2014 have provided more up-to-date data.

“It should be noted that not all applicants complete an equal opportunities monitoring form and, therefore, the figures could be higher.”