Luton Borough Council

11/02/2022 - Council reaffirms commitment to a 'town built on fairness' one year after Black Lives Matter motion

Councillors have heard how far-reaching work to put equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of the council’s vision to make Luton ‘a town built on fairness’ has already impacted the education, skills, business and community sectors.

A significant increase in the number of council staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, targeted focus groups to involve communities in key-decision making and tailored help for Black learners and business owners are just some of the achievements to have been made following the council’s Black Lives Matter and Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Workforce motions over the last 12 months, a meeting of the full council heard.

The motions, some of the first of their kind across local authorities in the UK, received cross-party support when they were tabled in January 2021 in the wake of local, national and international protests marking the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The council’s role in responding to global issues of historic, structural and systemic racism – as highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement - and a focus on developing a workforce which reflects the town’s community at all levels of the organisation, were outlined as key priorities.

At a meeting of the Full Council on January 25, officers presented achievements made over the last 12 months. They also shared plans which showed how further work was underway to address the issues highlighted in the two motions directly, and also how they had helped to shape a far more extensive equality, diversity and inclusion agenda for the council and wider community.

A community panel, including organisers from the Black African Caribbean community and relevant council service leads, had already met to review progress and identify further actions in making sure that Luton offers opportunity and representation for all those suffering higher levels of social exclusion. The council is committed to maintaining this dialogue and feedback with leaders from across the whole community.

Leader of Luton Council, Hazel Simmons MBE, said: “Working together with our community, as we have done on addressing the issues in these motions, to ensure that Luton is a place where everyone has a voice and everyone feels represented, empowered and treated fairly could not be more important to the future of our town.

“The commitments made in the motions are absolutely in line with our commitment to ensuring Luton is a town built on fairness for all its communities, a key element of the Luton 2040: No-One in Poverty vision.

“From my own work with community leaders, feedback from our partners and from the update provided at last week’s meeting, whilst there are still so many challenges and much to do to tackle inequality, we have made an important start and some significant progress, and I feel confident in the direction we are heading.

“I am particularly pleased to see the steps being taken by our colleagues at London Luton Airport. Ensuring local people can easily access opportunities and that diversity and inclusion is integral to their future work plan is an excellent indication of their commitment to this agenda.

“I look forward to another 12 months of collaboration and progression with the whole community.”

A spokesperson for the United Luton Caribbean and African Committee said:

“ULCAC are pleased to be monitoring the council's progress on the Black Lives Matter Motion. The report shows a dedicated start on the 10 action points set out in the motion.

“We are hopeful that more specific data for our black communities in the town will be collated and presented.

“We are also very interested in Luton Airport's role in the motion as they are one of town's largest employers.

“We encourage the council to deliver on this significantly important motion for black people in this town, as many dedicated parties fought passionately to make this happen. We believe that tangible outcomes from the council's plans will improve lives in a meaningful way.”

Other notable progress updates since January 2021 include:

launch of the Luton Fairness Taskforce, forming a key pillar of our Town Built on Fairness ambition, where voluntary and community organisations and citizens will work with the council and its key partners to tackle the most stubborn inequalities across the town. It provides a space for meaningful conversations where lived experience and challenges are heard, but crucially, solutions are sought to address root-cause issues around poverty and structural inequality via shared endeavour and partnership working.
a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Board, chaired by the Executive Leader, with representation from all council service areas in order to oversee and drive the development of a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy, due to be launched in June 2022. More than 200 residents have already been involved in focus groups which have provided rich in-depth feedback of the lived experience of residents in Luton around issues of culture and identity, access to services, experience of prejudice, and recommendations for change.
we increased the proportion of ethnic minority staff in our workforce to meet the 2% annual target over the last 12 months. In fact, over the last six months, we have recruited more staff from ethnic minority backgrounds than white staff. This work is important in ensuring our organisation reflects our super diverse town. Already in progress is a new workforce strategy which will focus on career progression pathways and a redesign of our recruitment approach to place inclusion and diversity firmly at the heart.
as part of the our broader aims around workforce representation, the operator of London Luton Airport has committed to: developing the ways in which Luton residents can find out about job opportunities at the airport; and to advertising all vacancies through a range of channels including the Luton Council job website. It has also established a 10 year Corporate Strategy which includes a commitment to building out their approach to diversity and inclusion.
more than 60 different organisations were included in our work to engage educational institutions across the town. Our service has worked closely with The Black Curriculum to curate materials and provide recommendations. This includes a recommendation embed Black culture and history throughout, rather than just for a day or just for Black History Month. There is now a huge range of curriculum materials now available around EDI, and including BLM, via the council website.
supporting people from ethnic minority backgrounds into employment or with further training has also been a key aim of both motions. We have since launched an Employment and Skills Strategy for Luton, involving partners across the town.
Luton Adult Learning delivers provision across the town, with 28% of learners from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds. We are also pleased to report the percentage of learners from African and any other Black/African/Caribbean background has increased since 2019/2020. The majority of learners are from Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds.
the Covid business recovery programme has supported many ethnic minority start-up businesses and the re-establishment Bury Park business forum has provided a network of support and advice for many in difficult times.
our Building Better Opportunities ‘Support into Employment’ programme had a target of supporting 570 individuals from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. This figure has already been exceeded, with 625 supported to date.