Public Sector Equality Duty

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Public Sector Equality Duty

Public Sector Equality Duty

Employment Period for 1st January 2017 – 31st December 2017 ‘CORMAC is committed to promoting fairness and opportunity, working towards developing good practice around equality and diversity outcomes. These outcomes will be aligned to the needs of our stakeholders, clients, customers, workforce and local communities’

Corserv is the new company established by Cornwall Council to provide strategic direction for its existing Arm’s Length and commercial trading companies: CORMAC Solutions Ltd, Cornwall Airport, Cornwall Housing, Cornwall Development Company and our Nottinghamshire joint venture company, Via East Midlands Limited. Representatives from each of the group of companies attend a Corserv Equality and Diversity Steering Group in order to ensure that best practice is consistent across the whole of the group and any issues can be raised. The chair of the Corserv equality group also attends Cornwall Council’s Corporate Equality Group to ensure there are clear lines of accountability and the group of companies are closely aligned to the Council commitment around equality.

CORMAC Solutions Ltd and CORMAC Contracting Ltd, are wholly owned Companies of Cornwall Council. CORMAC employs upwards of 1705 skilled and motivated people. The workforce are responsible for designing, building and maintaining highway infrastructure; provide integrated property maintenance, security, cleaning and landscaping services; associated support services including fleet management and maintenance; quarrying of stone and aggregate, as well as delivering domiciliary care to individuals in their own home and short term enablement services. CORMAC currently employs people at 20 sites and with people’s work spread across 100’s of different locations in Cornwall. CORMAC’s service delivery model is currently under review due to the new Corserv structure. For the sake of this report both Facilities services and CORMAC’s Community services have been included in the reporting figures.

CORMAC is obliged to produce public sector equality data as the general duty applies to bodies carrying out public functions on behalf of a public authority. CORMAC have specific duties under the Equality Act 2010 to publish information to demonstrate our compliance with the general equality duty.

The data included in this report is a snapshot of the workforce as at 31st December 2017 but it should be recognition that the workforce figures fluctuate significantly throughout the year. There are many areas where the workforce data is yet to be collected and due to the blank returns across certain protected characteristics this data is not completely accurate, nor does it give full picture of CORMAC’s workforce profile. CORMAC Equality, Diversity, Fairness and Opportunity Objectives

CORMAC gives the commitment to the following equality objectives which are aligned to our core values and the Equality Framework for Local Government criteria. These objectives are monitored and achieved through the CORMAC Equality, Fairness and Opportunity Action plan. CORMAC seeks to establish consistent practices to achieve the following objectives;

Objective 1 - Make informed decision at all levels by using our equality data, demonstrating strong leadership, partnership and organisational commitment.

Data is collected regarding workforce profiling, ethnic monitoring, disability, sex and grades. This type of data is used to make informed decisions and assess any negative impacts or inequalities across service delivery through the use of where there is a change in policy or a key equality impact assessments decision. This data is also reported at Senior Management Team meetings and forms overall strategic discussions around the direction of the Company. CORMAC is establishing a robust system for relevant monitoring and performance review of employment and service data aligned to the performance of the Company.

Objective 2 – Develop greater understanding of our workforce to support their needs and having a skilled and committed workforce.

CORMAC is developing a good understanding of the needs of our workforce and how to support individuals who work for CORMAC. Having an inclusive workforce which is representative of the communities we serve. deliver equality CORMAC will continue to awareness training as part of the corporate induction process for all employees. We will strive to change culture by encouraging and empowering staff to embed our core values through behaviours, attitudes and in the way we work and interact with partners, communities and customers. CORMAC is seeking to build and develop a positive working environment free from harassment, prejudice, and discrimination.

Objective 3 - Deliver accessible, responsive services and have positive customer care practices in place.

CORMAC log all complaints, compliments and comments coming into the Company and an overview is then reported to the Senior Management Team. Where there are issues around service delivery these can be quickly resolved. CORMAC are committed to improving a responsive service based on customer experiences and feedback. This is raised through our performance monitoring processes. As part of this objective CORMAC is developing best practice models around ‘responsible procurement’ aligned to the social responsibility of the Company. Objective 4 - Reduce any inequalities in service delivery.

New schemes and changes in service delivery consider the equality impacts prior to implementation through the equality impact assessment process, this allows wherever possible any inequality to be raised and addressed at the earliest possible stage. The equality impact assessment process does not fully consider compounded impacts to decisions. CORMAC is adopting an approach around comprehensive impacts to determine wider impacts to the Company; this will allow any inequalities to be fully recognised.

Objective 5 - Work with, and support community groups to develop collaborative ways of working and developing good community engagement mechanisms.

CORMAC is working with local community groups and voluntary sector organisations to help support local communities through the provision of employment and skills development opportunities. CORMAC is also developing meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships, which enable long term collaborative working and engagement with partners and local communities to build community cohesion and capacity. Community engagement plays a vital role in allowing a better understanding of the diversity within our communities across Cornwall. Continuing and developing relationships with our partners and engaging with our communities will ensure the CORMAC works towards effective, community focused outcomes.

Objective 6 - Communicate in an open, honest, transparent and simple way

CORMAC is committed to working in an open, honest and transparent way, and we are seeking to make sure our stakeholders, customers, workforce and the communities we serve are satisfied with the information and services we provide. All communication will be simple, effective and easy to understand. Senior Leaders are encouraged to talk openly and honestly about equality issues and develop a Company where challenge to any discrimination can be done, in a comfortable way. CORMAC will broaden engagement with the community through use of social media and other mechanisms. The Workforce Protected characterist ic’ s d ata broken down across the Company

CORMAC currently has 1704 employees as at the 31st December 2017 consisting of full time and part time roles. The workforce profile below clearly indicates that some areas of the company as expected have a dominant male to female ratio of workers e.g. Highways and Environment, with the more flexible roles being taken up more by female members of staff e.g Cleaning Services and School Crossing Patrol Services. The Community Services Division delivering care provision has a significantly higher proportion of the workforce being female which is aligned to the industry standard for this type of service.

Much of this data replicates the profile data of our local communities in Cornwall and is closely aligned to comparable industry standards.

Workforce profile – Head Count by division as at 31 st December 2017

Section Male Female Total Count Of Employees

CORSERV 2 1 3

Aggregates and Recycling 24 3 27

Cleaning Services 113 271 384

Collective 79 40 119

Community Services 7 202 209

Consultancy 104 77 181

Contracts 97 13 110

Facilities Services & Vehicle Maintenance 35 10 45

Finance 5 18 23

Graduates and Trainees 29 2 31

Highways and Environment 365 34 399

Management Team 8 11 19

Notterbridge Training 3 2 5

School Crossing Patrol 39 51 90

Surfacing 54 5 59

Total 964 740 1704

*includes zero hours contracts Workforce profile gender (based on 100% of workforce data)

Year Headcount Female % Male %

2017 1705 740 43.40 964 56.54% 2016 1786 782 43.78% 1004 56.22% 2015 1859 851 45.78% 1008 54.22% 2014 1707 666 39.02% 1041 60.98 % 2013 1629 657 40.33% 972 59.67%

Over the last three years CORMAC has seen a more even split across the gender profiling of the Company. CORMAC had the lowest headcount in 2017 since the company was established; however the gender split has remained reasonably stable with not much change from 2016.

Cornwall Profile

Females Males

85+ 80-84 75-79 70-74 65-69 60-64 55-59 50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 25-29 20-24 15-19 10-14 5-9 0-4 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 10 8 6

% of total population in each age band Shown above are numbers by sex and age, and the ‘dependency ratio’ (the ratio of non-working age to working age population). The Cornwall profile replicates that of the CORMAC data, which is evenly split. Workforce age profile (100% of workforce data)

The above graph comparison for 2017 and 2016 shows that the age profiling of the workforce has remained relatively the same.

Age 0-19 20-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56- 61+ categ 60 ories No. 21 109 113 115 129 183 278 325 291 328

% 17.08 1.23% 6.39% 6.63% 6.75% 7.57% 10.73% 16.31% 19.07% 19.25% %

The breakdown per age category shows that higher percentages of staff are grouped beyond the age of 41 years. As with previous years the percentage of younger employees starting their careers with CORMAC is relatively low. From the Cornwall data above you can compare the working age population against the CORMAC profile. Working Total Dependency Aged 0-15 age Aged 65+ Population ratio population 545,335 92,025 324,205 129,100 0.68 48.5% 16.9% 59.5% 23.7% England male; (England (England (England average = 51.5% average = average = average = 0.58 female 19.0%) 63.5%) 17.6%) Source: Mid-Year Estimates (ONS) 2014

The average age versus the length of service has also remained stable. The average age of the workforce is 47 years and the average length of service is just over 11 years. As identified in the age profiling because there is a larger proportion of the workforce towards the upper age groupings, individuals may be more inclined to stay with the company until retirement. Attracting younger employees and retaining these individuals is a challenge with competition in the marketplace for similar roles.

Workforce profile Starters & Leavers

Leavers Starters * Includes 190 Community Services staff 2015 258 456 * TUPE (in Oct 15)

2016 165 229

2017 333 236

Time period: Financial year & current year to date. 2016/17 YTD data excludes retirement, end of contract & redundancy, as well as individuals who have started and left in the same year.

The above leaver’s data highlights that there has been a significant staff turnover over the last 12 months, with nearly double the amount of staff leaving that previous years. Starter data remaining closely aligned to 2016. There is often a fluctuating staff turnover in services like cleaning however there has also been a lot of staff movement due to the implementation of Corserv. CORMAC has a large proportion of the workforce within Facilities Services and School Crossing Patrol divisions who are employed on a part time basis due to the Year Headcount Full-time % Part- % Time 2016 1786 946 52.97% 841 47.09%

2017 1705 859 50.38% 846 49.61%

type of work they undertake. CORMAC offer a number of roles with alternative working patterns which offers staff with families, caring responsibilities or other commitments the opportunity to still continue working.

Workforce profile ethnicity (based on 100% of workforce data)

Headcount White White Traveller White White White - English, White - Cornish 2017 English of Irish Other Irish Welsh, Scottish, Heritage Northern Irish, British 1705 8 1 1 3 637 259

Any other Any other Refused Mixed - Information Black Black Asian white Asian White & not yet Cornish British Cornish backgroun background Asian obtained d

21 2 5 3 760 1 2 2

*BME – Black and Minority Ethnic

Cornwall’s Population by Ethnicity

In 2011 73,220 people (13.8%) of people in Cornwall stated that they had Cornish or Cornish and another national identity, higher than the 2001 percentage of 6.8%

There are large gaps in ethnicity data across CORMAC, with 760 individuals not completing the data along with a number of individuals refusing to answer. Further work needs to be undertaken to collect ethnicity data but also to offer reassurance to employees as to what the data is being used for and why. Households with Other ethnic Asian Black multiple group ethnicities 3,435 760 830 9,115 0.1% (England 0.6% (England 0.2% (England 4.0% (England average = average = 7.8%) average = 1.0%) average = 8.9%) 3.5%) Source: Census 2011

Cornwall’s ethnicity make up is identified as predominantly ‘white British’ which mapped against the current CORMAC data shows that this is replicated.

Challenges

CORMAC have a significant part of the work force who are deemed ‘hard to reach’ either due to the fact that they are not networked to the IT systems and work mostly in an operational environment or due to the numbers of hours they work e.g. school crossing patrol, grounds maintenance, cleaners etc. Collecting workforce data against the 9 protected characteristics needs further work due to some of the accessibility issues the workforce have.

There is a challenge for CORMAC, as there are traditional gender splits across certain roles. Highways roles are traditionally dominated by white males, and cleaning roles are pre- dominantly white females. Attracting individuals against this gender split is difficult due to the nature of the roles, however CORMAC have been involved in a number of projects to challenge stereotypes e.g. women in engineering events and campaigns as well as targeting schools etc. to promote traditional male job roles being open to all. The changes in perception around traditional male orientated roles may not be recognised for a number of years.

Ongoing work is required to map succession planning given the age demographic across the Company and focus is required on attracting and retaining younger people into the Company to ensure there is a more diverse split across service delivery. Contact: Kim Mundy, Policy lead km u n d y @c o rmacltd . c o .uk 01872 326391

Corserv Ltd Head Office, Higher Trenant Road, Wadebridge, Cornwall

PL27 6TW Tel: 01872 323 313 Ema i l : comms@corservltd . c o .uk

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