Agenda item

The Director of Innovation and Growth to be heard.

The Sub-Committee welcomed the CEO of Progress Together. The Sub-Committee were sighted on a presentation, which covered the purpose of Progress Together, the importance of promoting socio-economic diversity, the challenges of meeting this target. Following the presentation, the Sub-Committee asked questions and made comments, summarised below:

·       Referencing discussion in an earlier item, it was queried what could be done to expand the numbers of organisations involved in social mobility and socio-economic diversity. The response was that it may be that organisations were currently doing very little with socio-economic diversity and mobility and thus did not communicate this publicly. However, there was also a lot of public anti-EDI rhetoric that meant that was organisations were not publicly communicating or sharing their work on EDI. Continued silence on this topic would mean that the targets of improving socio-economic diversity would not be met, and removing this stigma was one of the biggest challenges.

·       It was raised that the work of Progress Together should not be viewed or operate in isolation, with the Member highlighting the Women Pivoting to Digital Taskforce. This Taskforce also aimed for cultural change, and the City Corporation had role in providing opportunity and visibility for both these matters.

·       One of the aims of Progress Together was to facilitate a shift to skills-based organisations. However, it was noted that for global organisations, diversity was defined differently within different contexts – for instance, socio-economic diversity appeared to be a particular issue for the UK, which made it more difficult for global organisations to understand its importance. With 50% of Progress Together’s organisations being international, and it was a question of facilitating difficult conversations and being aware of the language used when talking with global peers.

·       It was noted that many investors were interested in socio-economic diversity, and a Member queried whether if there was progress with investing in venture capital, for instance. The response was that these were often the hardest markets to break into, and there was not much progress in venture capital. However, there was a real opportunity for local authority pension funds and investment, and the City Corporation had influence in pushing this matter.

RESOLVED – That the report be received, and its contents noted.