Employee equality report - March 2022

This report provides information for each of the protected characteristics, (age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, sex) as well as general organisation data for employees of Southend-on-Sea City Council.

Council profile

  • as of 1 March 2022, 1,857 employees were employed by Southend-on-Sea City Council, this is a Full Time Equivalent (FTE) of 1637 employees
  • 74% of employees work Full Time
  • this year’s total headcount of 1,857 employees has increased on the previous year
Employee 2018/2019 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Headcount 1,708 1,831 1,799 1,851
Full Time Equivalent (FTE) 1,496 1,587 1,577 1,637
Full Time Percentage 74% 72% 74% 74%

Disability

  • 3.3% of employees across the council declared a disability
  • the number of employees identifying themselves as disabled has increased from 2.7% in 2020/21
  • the percentage of employees whose disability status is ‘not known’ is 39%. An additional 0.5% of employees report a status of ‘prefer not to say’
Trend 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Percentage of employees who declared a disability 3.7 3.3 2,7 3.3

Sex

  • we have a higher proportion of females employed at the Council than male employees
  • 68% of employees throughout the whole organization identify themselves as Female, and 32% of employees identify themselves as Male
  • the proportion of Female to Male employees has remained constant since 2019/20
Trend 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Female 66% 68% 68% 68%
Male 34% 32% 32% 32%

Religion or belief

  • the number of employees choosing to disclose their religion and/or belief continues to grow with 0.9% more employees disclosing their religion/belief this year
  • Christians make up 26.1% of employees, a decrease of 0.7% from the previous year
  • 35.4% of employees religion and/or belief is ‘not known’, a decrease of 0.6% on the previous year
  • 24.4% of employees shared that they have ‘no religion’
  • 0.8% of employees identify as Muslim, 0.3% as Buddhist, 0.3% as Hindi, 0.3% as Jewish, and 2.0% chose ‘other’
Religion/Belief Trend 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 Overall Change
Buddhist 0.5% 0.4% 0.3% 0.3% 0.0%
Christian 32,1% 28.8% 26.8% 26.1% -0.7%
Hindu 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.1%
Jewish 0.4% 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.0%
Muslim 0.9% 0.7% 0.7% 0.9% 0.2%
No Religion 23.3% 22.8% 22.1% 24.4% -2.3%
Other 2.1% 2.0% 1.9% 2.0% 0.1%
Sikh 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1%
Prefer not to say 15.0% 12.9% 11.7% 10.4% -1.3%
Not Known 25.5% 31.8% 36.0% 35.4% -0.6%

Sexual orientation

  • for 2021/22 2.3% of employees declared that they are lesbian, gay or bisexual, this is an increase on the previous year
  • 52.5% of employees identify as heterosexual
  • 10.7% of employees ‘preferred not to say’, which is 1.3% fewer than last year
  • for 34.3% of employees, sexual orientation is ‘not known’, which is 0.9% lower than last year
Sexual Orientation Trend 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 Overall Change
Bisexual 0.5% 0.3% 0.6% 0.8% 1.0% 0.2%
Gay 0.5% 0.6% 0.7% 0.6% 0.8% 0.2%
Heterosexual 58.6% 57.9% 53.7% 51.0% 52.5% 1.5%
Lesbian 0.4% 0.6% 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% 0.0%
Prefer not to say 17.6% 15.9% 13.3% 12.0% 10.7% -1.3%
Not Known 22.2% 24.7% 31.1% 35.2% 34.3% -0.9%

Ethnic groups

  • the proportion of employees who identify their ethnicity as being white is 57%
  • the overall percentage of ethnic minority employees is 5.8%. This has increase from 5.3% in 2020/21
  • the largest ethnic minority group was ‘Black - African’ and ‘Black - Caribbean’, with Black employees of all backgrounds accounting for 3% of all employees
  • 32.5% of employee’s ethnicities are unknown
Trend 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
 Ethnic Minorities 5.9% 5.5% 5.3% 5.8%
Ethnic Background Headcount
White - English 1,038
White - Scottish 11
White - Welsh 4
White - Irish 9
White - Eastern European 4
Any other white background 40
Total 1,106
Mixed - White and Black Caribbean 6
Mixed - White and Black African 3
Mixed - White and Asian 11
Mixed - Any other mixed background 5
Total 25
Indian 7
Pakistani 4
Bangladeshi 8
Any other Asian background 4
Total 23
Black - Caribbean 12
Black - African 38
Black - Any other Black background 2
Total 52
Chinese 5
Any other ethnic group 3
Total 8
Declined to State 21
Not Known 622
Grand Total 1,857

Age distribution

  • employees are employed across all age bands, with fewer employees in the age bands under age 20 and over 65 years of age
  • most employees (267) fall within the age band of 50 to 54 years of age, followed closely by the band of 45 to 49 years of age (259) and band of 55 - 59 (258). Over four years, these age bands are seen to consistently contain the majority of employees
Age Range Employees 2021/22
16 - 19 5
20 - 24 80
25 - 29 158
30 - 34 184
35 - 39 225
40 - 44 208
45 - 49 259
50 - 54 267
55 - 59 258
60 - 64 151
65 and over 62
Age Range 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
16 - 19 1% 1% 0% 0%
20 - 24 5% 5% 4% 4%
25 - 29 7% 8% 8% 9%
30 - 34 11% 11% 10% 10%
35 - 39 11% 11% 12% 12%
40 - 44 11% 12% 12% 11%
45 - 49 13% 14% 13% 14%
50 - 54 17% 16% 15% 14%
55 - 59 12% 12% 13% 14%
60 - 64 8% 8% 8% 8%
65 and over 4% 4% 4% 5%

Contact switchboard and out of hours

Telephone: 01702 215000

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