Equality, Diversity And Inclusion Business Partner

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Business Partner will play a key role in bringing together an overview of the EDI activity delivered through Council services for Peterborough.
The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Business Partner will lead, design, and develop our internal equality strategy ensuring they are embedded across each Council with support and accountability through Senior Managers and Council Members. They will act as a critical friend, coordinating internal activity and leveraging partnerships so that we challenge people across both organisations to embed EDI in all aspects of the Council’s operations, ensuring inclusion by design across all activities and making this relevant and meaningful to every employee.
They will lead by example, by demonstrating a thorough understanding of equal opportunities and how EDI matters and affects our workforce and the communities we serve, including practical consideration of intersectionality and community cohesion.
Strategic Agenda

• Lead the Councils Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) agenda with the aim of mainstreaming EDI throughout the organisations’ cultures, workforce management, workforce practices, service provision and community engagement, embedding inclusivity at the heart of our organisations’ ambition and plans.

• Lead on the review and refresh of the Councils Equality Strategy and action plan. Lead the preparation, distribution, monitoring and maintenance of the EDI action plans and road map, working with colleagues across the Council who have responsibility for aspects of this work. Escalating and resolving outstanding actions to a successful completion.

Professional Advice

• Provide critical challenge to the leadership team, coordinating internal activity and leveraging partnerships so that we challenge people across the organisation to embed EDI in all aspects of the Councils operations, ensuring inclusion by design across all activities and making this relevant and meaningful to every employee.
• Act as a source of professional advice and expertise, developing and acting upon specialist knowledge, best practice, and current approaches in EDI, including to services working directly with communities, as well as our corporate teams, such as Workforce Development and Communications.
• Find creative solutions to complex organisational EDI matters, demonstrating an understanding of the impact and complexities of stakeholder and partnership arrangements applicable to both specific business areas, and the wider organisation. Act as a ‘critical friend’ to the Councils in a Business Partner capacity.
• Establish and develop trusted relationships with the senior leadership team, influencing all leaders and managers to consider and be able to articulate how EDI influences the way that they lead and commission the services that their teams deliver.

Working with Communities and Partnerships Teams

• Using the area profile information generated by the Communities and Partnerships Team, analyse and translate those requirements to ensure that workforce needs are also mapped and then work with internal partners to ensure that our workforce policies and practices mirror the community approach.

• Map internal activity and partnerships so that they can be clearly described and understood across each organisation, and facilitate cross team working to collaborate on linked areas of activity and interest.

Organisational Working Groups and Forums

• Chair the EDI Working Group, ensuring their work is robust and effective, and the action is developed, monitored and delivered on. Positively challenge the organisations to set ambitious goals to advance the agenda with pace.

• Provide guidance on ways of working and governance for any EDI networks, helping them to achieve maximum impact and achieve cultural change across all diversity strands.

• Work collaboratively with the Staff and Members Equality and Diversity Networks to support them to run their own activities and events.

Policy Development and Review

• Work with colleagues across the Council to ensure Council-wide and service specific policies reflect our commitment to equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Collaborate with, advise and support other corporate support teams to ensure the Councils’ strategies, policies and processes contribute to effective EDI management and delivery.
• Work with colleagues in HR to develop robust and effective organisation wide EDI employment policies and processes to be embedded throughout.
• Work with the Workforce Development Team to make sure that good quality learning and training tools are developed and accessible to all staff and are reviewed regularly to take account of developments and new ways of thinking.
• Ensure that Equality Impact Assessments (EqIA) are effectively used throughout the organisations and provide guidance to managers on the comprehensive completion of EqIAs.
• Work closely with colleagues to design and implement inclusive recruitment practices and inclusive leadership development as well as an attraction strategy that supports the attainment of a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Performance Reporting

• Analyse available sensitive data on EDI workforce performance, making recommendations for improvement as appropriate. Provide regular and precise reports identifying risks and opportunities for continuous improvement.

• Support the Council to build and retain a reputation for EDI as an employer, service provider and community leader. This includes benchmarking the Councils ongoing performance, developing and implementing continuous improvement plans, and enabling the Councils to achieve formal recognition or accreditation for their EDI work, where appropriate.

• Work with colleagues to track and review metrics, targets and analytics to understand and track progress against EDI actions and commitments.

Communications and Engagement

• Provide expert insight and advice on the delivery of EDI-focussed internal and external training, events and communications.

• Promote robust EDI initiatives that deliver sustainable change. The post holder will also support insight generation from staff to support meaningful plans that improve engagement and morale.

Mentorship and Support

• Provide mentorship and support to the EDI Network and create and facilitate opportunities for mentorship. Create and deploy a clear framework for reverse mentoring, complete with rules of engagement and clearly defined roles.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Peterborough and want our workforce to reflect this diversity, which we believe is beneficial for our employees, the organisation and the communities we serve