Equality and inclusion

We are committed to making systemic change though championing and advancing equity, equality, diversity and inclusion (EEDI) in everything we do. To do this we will develop a community of leaders who:

• Adopt values-based behaviours and are accountable for advancing EEDI, internally and externally.
• Confidently create and sustain an inclusive environment by understanding how conscious and unconscious bias impacts on decision making and take action to address this.
• Understand how the complexity and intersection of people’s identities can impact on access to opportunities and experiences.
• Ensure stakeholder engagement is accessible and inclusive considering the diversity of the communities we serve.
• Provide public spaces and a cultural offering responsive to the diversity of the Square Mile and beyond.
• Demonstrate that decisions are evidence-based and measurable.

Representation and experience ensure the City Corporation is an employer of choice where people thrive. Activities align with the People Strategy 2024-2029 including:

• Enhance our approach to attracting, developing and retaining excellent, diverse, local and national talent.
• Develop leadership capacity and capability to actively champion EEDI.
• Ensure that leaders take responsibility for creating a safe physical and psychologically safe working environment that is free from discrimination, harassment and bullying.
• Develop and review policies and procedures though an EEDI lens to ensure that they are fair, inclusive and are applied consistently.
• Take action to improve the robustness of our workforce data and regularly analyse it to identify trends and use the data to inform action to ensure that the key stages of the employment lifecycle are fair and inclusive of all.
• Extend and enhance the EEDI training offer to focus on awareness raising, skills building and inclusive culture development.
• Embed EEDI considerations into general training.
• Create a total reward and recognition offer that is fair, inclusive and acknowledges individual contribution, performance and supports progression.

Consideration of equity, equality, equality, diversity and inclusion is integral in the design, development, implementation and evaluation of our services. This aligns to our Corporate Plan 2024-2029; activities to deliver this objective may include:

• Strengthen the confidence and capability of our employees to have due regard to equality when planning services and evaluating their impact.
• Ensure our public spaces are inclusive and accessible.
• Take a community-centred approach, as set out in our Ethical Policy, to help us better understand the challenges our communities face and include them in our planning and decision-making processes.
• Continue to ensure that our website and public documents adhere to accessibility standards.

Someone’s socio-economic background should not limit their potential to flourish. Activities (cognisant with the Social Mobility Index recommendations for improvement) may include:

• Continue to use our influence to advance socio-economic diversity across the City, building on the success of the Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce report and its recommendations.
• Collaborate with a variety of communities to enable opportunities for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds to get in, get on, and belong in the City Corporation.
• Continue to measure our performance as an employer across the eight areas set out in the Social Mobility Index.
• Closer working across the City of London Corporation family to tackle barriers collectively and holistically for underrepresented groups.

Improving the robustness of equalities data to inform an evidenced based approach to advancing equality, equality, diversity and inclusion is essential. A heightened focus on data is therefore a cross-cutting activity alongside the development of appropriate outcome measures.