Outcome 7 (C) (LB)

PoW: One Service

General duty 2 & 3

Decision-making processes and services are influenced by the contributions of young people, women, minority ethnic people and disabled people.

Equality Evidence/Reasoning

We know that most of the formal engagement and participation mechanisms are not reflective of the demographic makeup of our communities.

An equality monitoring exercise undertaken on our Community Board community members in April 2024 found that Community Boards make up consisted of:

• 26% of members are disabled which is proportionate with the local population.

• No community boards have any young people under 25 participating.

• All Community Board members aged under 40 are women and 25% are from a minority ethnic background. 

• 12% of those aged 65+ are from a minority ethnic background. 

• All but one Community Boards have more women participating than men.

• Community Boards have no ethnic diversity.

We need to strive to increase participation in more formal mechanisms – we need to acknowledge that some people are not ready or don’t have the capability or capacity to engage in this way and that life circumstances and stages impact on this. We need to shift our thinking to more targeted approaches and how information from these is fed into the more formal mechanisms and decision-making structures to ensure decision are taken from a place of understanding needs – also linked to accountability.

Outcome 8 (C)

PoW: Transforming Places

General duty 1, 2 & 3

Our buildings, places and spaces are safe, vibrant, inclusive and accessible, better serving the needs of people with protected characteristics through effective planning, design and development.

Equality Evidence/Reasoning

• Population projected to increase from 340,180 to 341,174 by 2028.

• In 2022, there were more females (51.4%) than males (48.6%) living in North Lanarkshire.

• Between 2018 and 2028, the 0 to 15 age group is projected to see the largest percentage decrease (-9.8%) and the 75 and over age group is projected to see the largest percentage increase (+21.8%). In terms of size, however, 45 to 64 is projected to remain the largest age group.

• By 2037 the older population in North Lanarkshire will have increased by 68.4% from 2012.

• In 2023, the most common age group of mothers in North Lanarkshire was 30 to 34 (993 births) the 40 and over age group has seen the largest percentage increase in births (+31.5%).

• 25.29% of people over the age of 16 are limited in their day-to-day activities either a little or a lot.

• 29.9% of people are living with one or more long-term health condition.

• Many Asian women are prevented from walking alone due to fear of harassment and access to a car is perceived to be crucial for getting out and about.

• Increase in recorded crime rates, crimes related to sexual crimes, anti-social behaviour, disorder.

• Impact of population projections and demand for new supply of houses must support community regeneration and integration for all groups. Specific need for increased accessible and adaptable homes for older people and those with disabilities.

• Disabled access to the built environment including connections within and across place, the provision of inclusive play spaces for all ages and responding to the increase in neurodivergence in design of places and spaces.

• Effective planning across place investment to enable asylum seekers and refugees to integrate into the community.

• Supporting improved wellbeing through social prescription and inclusion as encouraged in the ‘well connected’ programme and associated concerns over accessibility, the provision of toilets for older people and availability of changing places available across the community.

• Responding to the prevalence of and impact of trauma on people in our communities, and ensuring our places and spaces embed trauma design principles and better serve people.

• Ensuring a more holistic approach to digital infrastructure and factoring digital inclusion into plans particularly for older people, those with disabilities and BAME people.

• Recorded crime rates e.g. sexual violence, anti-social behaviour, serious crime and disorder and improving safety in the community for women, older people, BAME people.

• Supporting improved health outcomes around Breastfeeding through physical regeneration to create better environments.

• Usage of places/spaces/assets and the types of use based on shift in demand is changing, continue to involve people with lived experience in design processes across regeneration and investment programmes.

Outcome 9 (C) (LB)

PoW: Digital NL and One Service

General duty 1, 2 & 3

The services and information we provide are accessible and tailored to different people's needs.

Equality Evidence/Reasoning

With the move to providing access to services in a more digital way we know that for some groups of people they will experience barriers if that is the only route for them.

Older people are less likely to be digitally connected and skilled.  Trust and confidence in digital technologies is commonplace.

Our Lives research highlighted a number of concerns for minority ethnic people - language skills, literacy, affordability for some groups also a key barrier.

For some disabled people digital technology can be a blessing while for others a barrier. For some people who use assistive technology – screen readers for instance - form filling on-line can present real problems.

People whose first language is BSL can be very digitally excluded, particularly older users as information needs to be in BSL.

The Council through various working groups – Digital Zones, Improving Customer Experience for example – is ensuring those most excluded are not left behind. Key is continuous engagement and involvement with groups who are impacted.

Accessing face to face services also need to be accessible. Employees skills and confidence in supporting service users and customers different needs is crucial and training and development opportunities need to reflect this.

One size does not fit all and we will need to continue to provide information and access to our services in a variety of ways that are proportionate and relevant.

Outcome 10 (C)

PoW: One Service

General duty 1, 2 & 3

Our employment practices actively encourage people to work for us, thrive and progress in their employment in NLC.

Outcome 1. Young, disabled minority ethnic and LGB&T people work with us at all levels and are supported.

Outcome 2. Reduce vertical and horizontal gender occupational segregation.

Outcome 3. Increase Minority Ethnic people in teaching and Social Work workforce.

Equality Evidence/Reasoning

All of our measures from 2021-25 outcomes have improved – Gender pay gap; composition of the workforce diversity- ethnicity, young people, sexual orientation and disability has increased but has still a way to go to be proportionate to the local population, particularly disability. For the first time we have 59 recorded employees under gender reassignment.

Disabled Employees

Disabled people in our workforce increased from 2.4% - 3.55% between 2022 and 2024. While 44.98% of our workforce have not self-recorded in this category the levels of non-recording is improving.

1% females are disabled and 8.3% males.

over 1/3 (34%) of disabled employees are under 40.

59.6% are working at grades 1-7. 3.5% are working in grades 15-18. No Chief Officers have recorded a disability.

2% of teachers are disabled.

41.8% of disabled employees work part-time

Minority Ethnic Employees

The number of recorded minority ethnic workers increased from 92 to 214 between 2020 and 2024 an increase of 132.6%.

53.7% of Minority ethnic employees work part-time.

44.9% of Minority ethnic workers are in NLC grade 1-6.

There are no ME employees in NLC 15 and above or D/HTs or P.Tchs.

There are 20 ME teachers across the whole estate. We know that in some schools there is a 12% ME pupil population with some of those schools having no ME teachers, this has a known impact on pupil at schools and their aspirations to become a teacher.

There are only 5 recorded ME employees working in all areas of Home Support – out of 1430 (0.3%). The Our Lives research told us that people are rejecting home care due to the lack of cultural and language competence of carers.

Women and Men

77% of our workforce are women, and just under half of the entire workforce work part-time, 90% of whom are women.

Approx 4000 female employees – ¼ of the workforce - are part-time and working in our lowest pay grade. 97% of NLC1 grades are occupied by women.

Part time work and low pay creates a lower average hourly rate and contributes towards the overall gender pay gap of 6.9% in the single status workforce. The overall pay gap across all sectors is 3.98%.

The lowest paid grades are mainly in the occupations of – care, cleaning, catering and clerical – known as the 4 Cs and where Occupational segregation is very evident. 

At the other end of the scale there is a reduction in part-time work opportunities, and this means females are more likely to be in lower graded roles when returning to work in order to combine work with other responsibilities – caring for young children for instance.

Occupational segregation is stark in some of our services.

There is strong gender-based segregation noted in traditional female dominated roles of caring and catering. The only service with more males than females is Enterprise and Communities – the host service for more male traditional roles like cleansing, gardeners, cemetery workers and drivers.

The only NLC1 post within NLC is Cleaner which is dominated by females.

Chief Officers have more males than females, illustrating clearly occupational segregation in grades (the glass ceiling effect).

Even in Chief Officers there is a pay gap between men and women at 8.5% - the biggest pay gap across all terms and conditions.

Having work and paid employment provides financial independence, control and having policies that support women to sustain employment recognising their responsibilities as carers is crucial.

Until there is gender equality in employment –women will continue to be in lower paid roles, affecting not only their financial independence during their working lives but affecting their future pensions. It is well document that women disproportionately live in poverty compared to men.

Financial dependence throughout many women’s lives can be a key factor in being in a position to live a safe life, as are the networks and support that women can access at work.

Age

5% of our workforce are under 25.

12.3% are over 60.

Nearly 1/3 of our employees are women aged over 50.

With an aging workforce comes the need to support that workforce with health conditions and age specific conditions such as the menopause for our predominantly female workforce.

We are taking steps to attract a young workforce, and this will continue.

Sexual Orientation

Approx 2% of our workforce have recorded their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay or bisexual – an increase from previous years and more people are recording in this category. But there is still  36.6% of the workforce who have not recorded.

Gender re-assignment

For the first time we have employees who have recorded in this category – 59 in total. 17 were recruited in 2024.