Race recruitment and retention - an instigation for change: action plan

Measuring Progress

If we are successful, this is what we would expect to see, hear or feel:

Outcome 1

• Evidence of high quality race-related D&I objectives that advance race equality. 
• Key Performance Indicators for senior leaders
• Employees are positive that action is being taken and positive change is felt. 

Outcome 2

• Employees are positive that senior leaders are taking action that is leading to positive change. 
• Evidence of race equality shaping decision-making.
• Evidence of institutional restructuring based upon anti-racist analysis.

Outcome 3

• Minority ethnic people represent 5% of workforce composition and at each level. 
• 6% of new entrants into the SCS are minority ethnic people by 2025
• The ethnicity pay gap reduces

Outcome 4

• Evidence of equality of opportunity in career progression, access to development and learning
• Increased confidence amongst minority ethnic employees of fulfilling potential
• Reduction in performance appraisal gap for minority ethnic employees

Outcome 5

• Reduction in discrimination, harassment and bullying scores in People Survey, including intersectionally. 
• ‘Inclusion’ measures demonstrate that strong sense of inclusion amongst minority ethnic colleagues.
• Employees are confident to discuss race equality

Our plan is focused on five key priorities:

Key Priority 1: Embedding Responsibility and Accountability

Outcome: There is ownership of the plan at individual, corporate and leadership levels, and people are taking effective action to implement the Race Recruitment and Retention Action Plan.

Measures: 

• Evidence of high quality race-related D&I objectives that advance race equality. 
• KPIs for senior leaders
• Employees are positive that action is being taken and positive change is felt.

Key Priority 2: Leadership, Governance and Decision Making

Outcome: Senior leaders takes the lead and champion Race Recruitment and Retention Plan and incorporate equity lens in all leadership and people-related policies, processes and decision they make.

Measures: 

• Employees are positive that senior leaders are taking action that is leading to positive change. 
• Evidence of race equality shaping decision-making.
• Evidence of institutional restructuring based upon anti-racist analysis.

Key Priority 3: Recruitment and Representation

Outcome: Minority ethnic employees are represented at all levels and in all areas, particularly within at senior levels and management structures

Measures: 

• ME people represent 5% of workforce composition and at each level. 
• 6% of new entrants into the SCS are minority ethnic people by 2025.
• The ethnicity pay gap reduces.

Key Priority 4: Career progression and promotion

Outcome: Minority ethnic employees experience equality of opportunity and are optimistic about being able to fulfil their potential in SG

Measures: 

• Evidence of equality of opportunity in career progression, access to development and learning
• Increased confidence amongst ME employees of fulfilling potential
• Reduction in performance appraisal gap for ME employees.

Key Priority 5: Building an anti-racist culture

Outcome: Our workplace culture is inclusive, collaborative, accountable and enables the skills, talent, experiences and diversity of our minority people to flourish.

Measures: 

• Reduction in discrimination, harassment and bullying scores in People Survey, including intersectionally. 
• ‘Inclusion’ measures demonstrate that strong sense of inclusion amongst ME colleagues.
• Employees are confident to discuss race equality at work.
• Core themes running through all priorities:
• Communication
• Capability Building
• Measuring Progress
• Race Recruitment and Retention Action Plan
• Our plan is focused on five key priorities:

Key Priority 1 

Embedding Responsibility and Accountability

Outcome

There is ownership of the Plan at individual, corporate and leadership levels and people are taking effective action to take ownership and implement the Race Recruitment and Retention Plan.

What we learnt from engagement

Accountability is paramount at all levels

In particular, diversity (including on race) should be a key performance indicator for senior leaders.

Action

• SCS and C Band use their platform to take action which demonstrates visible leadership to raise awareness of and challenge institutional racism. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 - Priority 

Owner: SCS / C Band

• Action owners have delivery expectations related to the Race Plan explicitly embedded in their deliverables. ^ 

Year of Delivery: Year 1 - Priority

Owner: Director for People Director for Communications, Ministerial Support and Workplace

• Undertake regular (at least annual) review and assessment of all the relevant data that relates to race recruitment, retention and progression. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 - Priority 

Owner: Corporate Analytical Services Team 

• Introduce a requirement that all recruitment at C band and above must include demonstrating evidence around inclusive People Management and Leadership and taking action to advance equality, diversity and inclusion ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 - Priority

Owner: People Directorate

• Executive Team communicate regularly and across different audiences about the actions they are taking and the impact it is having. ^

Year of Delivery: Years 1-4 Priority 

Owner: Executive Team/Corporate Communications

• Explore changing the resourcing policy of requiring panel members to be a grade above the post being assessed. Review this steer with the Civil Service Commission. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Resourcing

• Work collaboratively with stakeholders to develop appropriate targets to drive and enable effective scrutiny progress in delivering Plan’s ambitions. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• D&I Objectives – Review and improve the effectiveness of the current approach to setting and providing related guidance for D&I objectives. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Set increasing diversity and inclusion (including explicitly around race) as a Key Performance Indicator for senior leaders. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Executive Team

• Provide updated guidance on how to assess leading inclusively and taking action to promote diversity and equality. This will provide a set of positive and negative indicators, guidance on ‘what good looks like’ at different levels of leadership and include explicit examples of race equality in action ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Introduce recruitment policy that panels for recruitment/promotion must be diverse i.e. gender rep and race OR disability, otherwise need sign off by DD to proceed. Initial focus on campaigns for 10 people or more. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Resourcing

• Increase the numbers, diversity and equality (including specifically race equality) skill of lead panel members. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Resourcing

• DG’s are responsible for producing race action plans, with clear allocation of resources. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 3

Owner: DG’s

• EQIAs on workplace adjustments – Deliver Phase 1 – on-boarding and Phase 2 - recruitment and assessment 

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Workplace Adjustment Team

• Equality Evidence Data Packs - Develop and implement with explicit reference to race data and evidence to support equality impact assessment analysis. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• EQIAs Product Improvement - Improve the product for policy developers (form, guidance, process and online site for completed assessments and resources to support them). *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• EQIA Employee Passport - Expand commitment to develop a Disability Passport to develop an Employee Passport to cover more diverse needs and assist facilitating discussions between staff and line managers particularly on joining and moving post internally. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Workplace Adjustment Project Team

• The Mainstreaming and Equality Outcomes Report – Report as per legal requirement. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Gender Pay Gap information - Report as per legal requirement and leverage to inform policy making. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Employee Relations and Reward

• The Equal Pay Statement - Report as per legal requirement and leverage to inform policy making. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Employee Relations and Reward

• New Equality Outcomes - Develop and implement with the process including consultation of minority ethnic employees. These will be published as per legal requirements. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• EQIAs Employee Awareness – focusing on People Directorate, raise awareness and understanding of conducting equality impact assessments on decision-making in policy development. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Equal Pay Audit - to identify the causes of and remedies for our gender pay gap. This will take an intersectional approach. *

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Employee Relations and Reward

* Relates to Starter for Ten action

^ Relates to New action 

Key Priority 2 

Leadership, Governance and Decision Making

Outcome

Senior leaders take the lead and champion the Race Recruitment and Retention Action Plan incorporating an equity lens in all leadership and people-related policies, processes and decision they make.

What we learnt from engagement

Respondents are asking senior leaders to share their power to address and embrace racial equality in Scottish Government. Collective leadership where diverse voices can effectively influence decision making spaces is a must.

Action

• Support and build awareness and skills of senior leaders related to racial inequality in access to opportunities, bias, institutional racism and how to disrupt them through developing anti racist mind set and inclusive leadership.

Year of Delivery: Years 1-2 Priority 

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Explore how to ensure diverse voices can effectively influence decision-making spaces through exploring collaborative leadership model which is distributed, open and empowered. For example, introduce a panel of diverse observers who can listen and critique how race/D&I is influencing decisions over a set period of time, to build on strengths and identify opportunities for improvement. ^ 

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Executive Team Support and Governance Office

• Publish six monthly updates on how senior decision-making boards are ensuring diverse voices – centrally and at a department, profession and function level, particularly in Key Covid-19 teams.*

Year of Delivery: Years 1-4

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Develop a culture and expectation of quality impact assessment of decision-making which is evaluated for example, as part of Annual Report on each formal Corporate Board’s performance which is provided to Corporate Board annually. In addition, ensuring that the template for formal Corporate Governance meetings ask for confirmation that race/D&I considerations have been reflected in the proposals. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Executive Team Support and Governance Office

• SG KPI Dashboard - Develop with reporting on a quarterly basis. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team/Corporate Analytical Services Team

• Mutual mentoring – Second programme initiated to build insight and experience between senior civil servants and minority ethnic colleagues. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Engagement Sessions – Facilitate with groups of staff about wellbeing based on protected characteristics. Insights will be used to inform HR policy and practice. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Develop Race Equality policy statement and guidance providing practical examples of overt and everyday racism. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

• HR Policy / Diversity and Inclusion Team

* Relates to Starter for Ten action

^ Relates to New action

Key Priority 3 

Recruitment and Representation

Outcome

Minority ethnic employees are represented at all levels and in all areas, particularly within senior levels and management structures.

What we learnt from engagement

The lack of representation of minority ethnic employees at all levels made them feel less important and deficient in all levels of participation and inclusion; they have limited access to research and consultation opportunities and are in lower grades and inferior in position of power.

Action

• Deliver essential training on race equality and inclusion to action owners of this Plan, prioritising People Directorate and employees involved in recruitment and selection. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority 

Owner: Resourcing/Learning & performance/Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Develop a positive action policy to set out the initiatives we will take, the underpinning evidence base and how we will measure impact. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Resourcing

• Embed Race Recruitment Guidance in existing managers’ guidance to equip recruiting managers with best practice and action they can take to increase racial diversity in recruitment. This will include mapping the routes of entry into SG and supporting managers to know how to leverage them to contribute to our diversity ambitions. Disseminate widely and evaluate impact.

Year of Delivery: Year 1-2 Priority

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• SCS Recruitment - Leadership Criteria - Implement a core common set of leadership with specific behavioural indicators, to improve consistency of decision making. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Blind sifting - Trial to test if this improves diversity of sifts. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• Anonymised Recruitment: implement to remove the name of candidates during the sift stage of the process. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Resourcing

• Improve analytics capability and undertake diversity analysis regularly across all stages of recruitment, and routes of entry, to understand where and why inequalities occur and identify appropriate action. . ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Corporate Analytical Services Team

• Strengthen the resource capacity and expertise to deliver necessary changes to recruitment policy and strategy ^ 

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Resourcing

• Develop and resource delivery of a recruitment strategy which delivers on diversity ambitions. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Resourcing

• Recruitment Outreach Plan – Implement to ensure that future centralised recruitment activities are promoted to as diverse a population as possible. The plan covers more than 140 stakeholders, including 26 organisations with a particular focus on race and religion, and will help ensure engagement with those who can assist in achieving our diversity objectives. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Resourcing

• SCS Recruitment - Marketing and candidate packs - Improve to ensure inclusivity and provide more guidance to candidates on the selection process. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Performance Appraisals – Trial removal from internal and Other Government Department recruitment. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Training for Panel Members - Improve guidance and training for panel members and ‘diverse panel members’. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Reasonable Adjustments - Provide a single point of contact for workplace adjustments. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Central list of potential candidates – Compile for those interested in job share to facilitate. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Guidance for job-share applicants and panel members – Develop and implement. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Expression of Interest advertising and selection process – Review to establish if a more formal, and longer, process is required to meet diversity goals. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - A permanent online presence – Provide clear, honest perspectives on the experience of life in SCS, illustrated by a range of people from the current SCS cadre, and connecting candidates to resources to help prepare for selection processes. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Assessment Methods - Work with our suppliers to explore how we can increase the objectivity of assessment and reduce the reliance on interview as the deciding factor in appointments. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• SCS Recruitment - Temporary Responsibility Supplement - Review our approach and process. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• Public Appointments: Continue to implement action plan covering 2019 – 2022 which aims to understand and address the barriers to minority ethnic people’s success in securing public appointments. Actions include:

– Analysing issues with the application process

– Talent development

– Embedding ME people into the power structures *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

• Owner: Public Appointment Team

Leverage the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Practice Expectations 2020-21 – Practitioner Expectations to:

– Underpin and inform the development and delivery of the Race Recruitment and Retention Action Plan

– Inform future resourcing and recruitment actions relating to race equality*

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Resourcing

• Offer constructive feedback to unsuccessful ME candidates who are interviewed for jobs in the Scottish Government. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• Set clear expectations when engaging with agencies and contractors around actively searching among diverse talent pools and providing feasible long lists to advance our diversity ambitions. We will embed race equality and diversity in performance meetings with these contractors ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Resourcing

• SCS Recruitment - Investment in analytics – As part of the wider transformation of HR, capture a greater range of data on each campaign to drive improvements and exploring the feasibility of establishing near real-time analytics to enable adjustment of campaigns in progress *

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Talent & Leadership

* Relates to Starter for Ten action

^ Relates to New action 

Key Priority 4 

Career progression and promotion

Outcome

Minority ethnic employees experience equality of opportunity and are optimistic about being able to fulfil their potential in SG

What we learnt from engagement

There is sense of a lack of endorsement, support and consistency in appraisal and performance, progression and promotion for minority ethnic employees; peer support needs to be supported and promoted amongst minority ethnic employees; make mentoring support more meaningful.

Action

• Develop clear mentoring and sponsorship approaches and embed in the talent offer to ME employees. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Talent and Leadership

• Talent Offering - Develop specific talent offer for ME and disabled colleagues in Bands B and C. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority 

Owner: Talent and Leadership

• Review the available data which impacts on career progression (appraisals, promotion, perceptions of fulfilling potential) to gain a holistic understanding of the barriers and opportunities for change ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority 

Owner: Corporate Analytical Services Team

• Develop training for Line Managers on equality and inequalities in career progression, promotion, performance assessment, to support an environment where racism is challenged and race issues are openly discussed. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1 Priority

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Talent Management - Ensure focus on ME and disabled colleagues through SCS talent management processes *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent and Leadership

• Continue to invest in talent at B and A through apprenticeships.*

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent and Leadership

• Diverse succession plans – Engage with internal and external networks to identify a small group of ME and disabled individuals who would be credible successors for existing SCS roles, and identifying development support for those who are nearly there. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent & Leadership

• Incorporate content in the corporate induction pack around career development and support in place for ME staff. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent and Leadership /Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Appraisal Process - Evaluate the impact of the recent streamlining of this in relation to Covid19 and consider available data across a range of demographics to enable further analysis of the priorities to be taken forward which may include changes to policy and/or practice. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: HR Policy

• Career Development – Regularly engage with REN to promote career development. *

Year of Delivery: Years 1 , 2, 3, 4

Owner: Talent and Leadership

* Relates to Starter for Ten action

^ Relates to New action 

Key Priority 5 

Building an anti-racist culture

Outcome

Our workplace culture is inclusive, collaborative, accountable and enables the skills, talent, experiences and diversity of our minority ethnic employees to flourish.

What we learnt from engagement

The current SG culture needs to change in order to embrace racial equality, diversity and inclusion – so as to advocate for a diverse work force. There’s a need to put energy into the ‘hearts and minds’ rather than the policy and formal processes. 

Action

• Focus on allyship, building a group of employees (‘race ambassadors’) who are willing to take action to facilitate conversations and call out both subtle and overt racism.

Year of Delivery: Year 1-4 Priority

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Profile minority ethnic role models at all levels, both within and SG and using as an opportunity to promote the Race Equality Network ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1-4

Owner: Corporate Communications

• Develop a Communications strategy which showcases action and impact and establishes race equality as everyone's responsibility. The strategy will aim to tackle prejudice and promote understanding through profiling and telling the stories of minority ethnic colleagues. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Corporate Communications

• Support and encourage managers in discussing relevant racial equity topics and engaging employees around SG’s values, norms, goals and expectations regarding racial diversity, equity and inclusion. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1-2

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Diverse voices – Work collaboratively with CSGU and networks to agree how diverse voices can systematically be heard in policy development processes. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: HR Policy / Diversity and Inclusion Team

• SG Vision - contributes to the next organisational vision and captures the organisational commitment to equality, inclusion and diversity within it. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Change and Operations

• D&I Strategy - Shape and begin implementation of a vision for equality, diversity and inclusion centred on continual improvement and striving for excellence. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Start strengthening relationships with SG Diversity Networks with an initial focus on REN and CSGU. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Exit Interviews SCS - Provide six monthly updates on any relevant key themes from exit interviews to the D&I team. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Talent and Leadership

• ‘“Let’s talk race” sessions – Develop and facilitate to enable dialogue on the subject and as part of the consultation in the development of the Race Action Plan. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Cultural Awareness Training - Conclude roll-out of cultural awareness training for our Counselling and Wellbeing advisors. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Engage with the Race Equality Network to discuss the provision of Counselling and Wellbeing Services to ensure it provides for diverse needs and gives support that can generate empathy with a wide range of staff. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Resolution Services - Work with the REN leads to further explore how we can leverage resolution services (provided by Visit Scotland for individual cases) to provide COVID-19 and return to work support. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Diversity and Inclusion Curriculum - Start developing and implementing a D&I Curriculum with dedicated solutions for leaders at all levels. *

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• (Re)design processes/approaches to enable SG to analyse and report on Grievances and Disciplinaries by protected characteristic, including ethnicity. Explore where possible this could be built into systems capability. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Exploring the theme of anti-racist facilitation and organisational development practice will be included in the Organisational Development Community Practice CPD for 2021.

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Organisational Development

• To recognise that race is a key dimension in OD practice, work with it explicitly during facilitation and work with leaders and the team. For example: naming and supporting groups to explore who is and isn't in the room, how that shapes the flow of power and decisions, how systemic inequality and racism shows up in group dynamics and how the methods and techniques commonly used in group processes and business can both support and suppress participants involvement and sense of belonging.

Year of Delivery: Year 1

Owner: Organisational Development

• Exit Interviews A-C - Develop a standard approach to exit interviews for A-C band staff and provide six monthly updates on any relevant key themes to the D&I team. *

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Equip employees with the knowledge and skills in tackling race issues so minority ethnic employees gain the confidence and trust to report racial incidents if and when it happens to any of them. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Learning and Performance / Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Engage with Behavioural Insights Team to explore interventions which support a shift in attitudes and behaviours. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Clearly communicate ways to report racism and other forms of discrimination, bullying and harassment. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: People Advice and Wellbeing

• Encourage all employees, prioritising where the need is greatest, to provide their ethnicity records explaining the benefits of disclosure, linking to work on racial inequalities and transparency on how data is going to be used. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Early Contact Teams - Work with the Race Equality Network to promote the approach and to seek minority ethnic representation. Ensure volunteers have received cultural awareness training. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Diversity and Inclusion Team

• Establish standards and communicate clear expectations of zero tolerance around racist behaviour or 'banter' in the workplace. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: HR Policy

• Create safe spaces, systems and times to talk, share experiences and learn from each other within the context of racism or any forms of inequality in SG. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Race Equality Network / Senior Civil Service

• Undertake qualitative research to listen to and learn from lived experiences of minority ethnic colleagues to understand why they, particularly women, experience higher rates of discrimination, bullying and harassment, and feel less comfortable talking to senior leaders about their actions, and shape then implement actions to increase confidence to report. ^

Year of Delivery: Year 2

Owner: Corporate Analytical Services Team

* Relates to Starter for Ten action

^ Relates to New action