Workforce Diversity Planning

The diversity of the workforce continues to be a strategic priority for us. During 2024, we commissioned two key pieces of work to help us improve our understanding of our communities, in particular the way in which Nottinghamshire has changed over a ten-year period and also the perception of racially minoritised (ethnic minority) communities in the city of Nottingham. These studies were undertaken by Nottingham Trent University and In2People respectively.

Subsequently, a project board has steered this work which enabled key stakeholders in People and OD, Community Engagement and Communications to develop new plans for implementation from April 2025. A new project will be initiated aiming to do the following:

• Implement Communications and Marketing Plan
• Implement Community Engagement and Positive Action
• Agree and embed key performance indicators for workforce diversity, community engagement and positive action.

Improving diversity in the wholetime firefighting cohort of the organisation remains a priority with some incremental improvements being seen at firefighter level. However, diversity in supervisory, middle and senior leadership positions remains a concern. Diversity in professional services roles (Green Book) continues to improve but again, we need to redouble our efforts over the course of this plan to begin to reflect the community we serve, particularly in terms of those who are from racially minoritised backgrounds.

SLT has agreed a new set of performance indicators for workforce diversity and community engagement activity (Appendix A). These will be reviewed on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are fit for purpose and measuring the appropriate areas.