Agenda item

Report of the Tackling Racism Taskforce.

The Committee considered a Report of the Town Clerk concerning the recommendations of the Tackling Racism Taskforce (TRT).

The Chair thanked the Co-Chairs of the TRT and the officers involved for all their hard work over the past six months; this was  a ground-breaking project delivered at pace during a time of immense challenge due to the pandemic, and all involved should be justly proud of their efforts.    

In response to a query, officers confirmed that, assuming Committee endorsement, the Report will be circulated to other relevant Committees (e.g. Police Authority Board, Education Board etc) for departmental/sectoral specific recommendations to be taken forward/embedded. The Co-Chair of the TRT emphasised that a lot of liaison had gone on over the past several months with other Committees and none of these recommendations should come as a surprise.

In response to another query, officers confirmed that funding (sourced from within local risk budgets) was being identified to ensure that all Members of staff across the Corporation were able to receive diversity training, this hadn’t been the case in the past with a number of individuals missing out due to their job role and/or limited availability. Officers are working on the logistics for roll-out and an update Report would be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee in March.

In response to a query, the Chair reiterated that the appointment of a Head of Equality and Diversity had already been approved by the Court of Common Council as part of the Target Operating Model and did not need to be revisited.

In response to a query around the effective utilisation of data, officers stressed that the Equality and Inclusion Board (EIB) would be robust in using the data to hold departments to account and, if necessary, challenge Chief Officers and their senior teams to do more. In addition, going forward, the EIB would carry out an annual audit process which would compare and challenge the data submitted against what staff are saying via the staff survey and other consultations.  

A Member had several queries:

Paragraph 47 – he cautioned the Committee that the Corporation needed to be careful about telling Livery Companies what to do; indeed, Livery Companies had been very active in this area over the last year.

Education – he stressed that all schools should try to recruit a diverse group of staff and governors, but it was the quality of the education (and consequent outcomes) that must remain the paramount concern.

In addition, whilst he welcomed the emphasis on extra financial resources for the Academies, he cautioned that we needed to keep in mind the benefits that bursaries bring for pupils to attend the City’s independent schools (both with the City’s immediate family of schools and those with a looser link, such as Christ’s Hospital).

In response to a query, the Co-Chair confirmed that the TRT held approx. 100 meetings between June 2020 and January 2021; the whole taskforce met on a weekly basis, with the bulk of other meetings being organised by the Co-Chairs who would then report back to the taskforce. She added that it was noticeable about how keen a lot of people are for the Corporation to be a leader and facilitator in this area – the TRT and the Social Mobility Taskforce would be hugely positive in this regard.

Turning to the recommendations, Mr Mayhew and Mr Colthurst exercised their right under Standing Order 38 to have their dissent recorded in relation to the removal of the William Beckford and Sir John Cass statues from the Great Hall. Both Members raised their concern that the funding source for the removal of the statues needed to be identified first before the removal could take place.

Officers confirmed that after the recommendations were, in principle, agreed by the Members of the Policy and Resources Committee the previous week, a Statues Working Group was set up to establish the practicalities (including the costs) of the removal (and replacement) of the statues.

RESOLVED – that, whilst noting the dissent of Mr Mayhew and Mr Colthurst concerning the removal of the statues, the Committee endorsed the list of recommendations of the Tackling Racism Taskforce under the relevant workstreams, outlined in Appendix 1 of the report.