Council makes important strides on workforce diversity

During a full council meeting on 18 March 2025, councillors heard about progress Luton Council has made in narrowing ethnicity pay gaps, improving the diversity of its workforce at all levels, and in staff perception around the council’s progress on EDI.

Four years on from the passing of a landmark Black Lives Matter (BLM) motion and related Council Workforce motion, the council also unanimously voted to adopt an Anti-Racism Charter.

The Anti-Racism Charter has been supported by UNISON, Unite and GMB trade unions and makes a number of commitments for the organisation to go further on tackling all forms of racism including Islamophobia and antisemitism. An action plan will be going to the Council’s Executive in the next few months to set out the council’s response.

Key achievements reported to councillors from last year include:

• The proportion of employees at a senior manager level who identify as being from a minority ethnic background grew by 6.5% (from 20% in March 2024 to 26.5% in March 2025). This is an 8.5% rise from when the Council Workforce motion was first passed, when the percentage of senior managers identifying as being from a minority ethnic background was 18% (March 2021).
• The proportion of employees from a minority ethnic background across the council’s total workforce grew by 3.7% (from 31.6% in March 2024 to 35.3% in March 2025).
• The latest ethnicity pay gap reporting saw a narrowing of ethnicity pay gaps – in March 2024, the mean ethnicity pay gap was 6.9% in favour of white employees, down from 8% in 2023.

Cllr Maria Lovell MBE, Portfolio Holder for Women, Equalities and Community Safety, said: “We have seen real progress this year and it’s great to see the council’s senior management team being more representative of the community we are here to serve, but we know many challenges remain and we need to do more working with our communities and partners to tackle inequality and promote equity, diversity and inclusion”

“The BLM and Workforce motions set an important course towards addressing historic structural and systemic racism. Our annual reporting allows us to examine the progress that we have made on the motions as well as on our broader 2040 vision to create a town that is built on fairness for all.

“The adoption of the UNISON Anti-Racism Charter will help drive further progress on our commitment to developing a workforce that fully reflects the diversity of Luton across all levels of the organisation.”