Dudley Council staff face racial prejudice, says report

A former council employee accused Dudley Council of keeping the findings secret

Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees at Dudley Council were twice as likely as white employees to face disciplinary probes, a report said.

The equality review also found nearly a third - 29% - of disciplinaries raised against the employees resulted in them having no case to answer.

Unite and Unison said it "upheld anxieties" it had raised and accused the council of delaying its release.

The council said it would challenge itself "to do much better".

The report by brap, formerly Birmingham Race Action Partnership, was made available to council staff in December and the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said it obtained a copy this month.

Council figures showed that of the 4,797 people who worked at the local authority in 2020, 11.9% identified as black, Asian, and other ethnic minority workers.

Based on a survey of 720 people, the report said employees belonging to ethnic minorities were twice as likely - 2.46% - to be the subject of a disciplinary investigation, compared to 0.83% of white employees. It found 29.1% of disciplinaries raised against ethnic minorities also resulted in no case to answer, compared to 6.8% for employees who were white.

The report also stated that within the authority, ethnic minority employees were twice as likely to have experienced bullying or discrimination from a manager in the last 24 months, and three times more likely to say they had been bullied by a colleague. 

'Culture change'

Anonymous comments from participants included one experiencing "bullying and intimidation through emails, face-to-face, telephone calls, and made to feel worthless", resulting in them wanting to leave their job.

There were "relatively low numbers" of black senior leaders, with many ethnic minority employees alleging it was "harder" to progress into more senior roles, the findings showed.

In the report, the two trade unions - Unite and Unison - also alleged white employees undergoing disciplinary action would receive "more favourable and less harsh treatment".

Theresa Kelly, branch secretary of Unison, blamed the council of delaying the release of the report so it could "polish its equality and diversity credentials".

She said outcomes from a collective grievance started by the two unions in July 2020 over three staff allegedly suspended within weeks of each other for gross misconduct were still not known.

A senior former employee at the council, who spoke to LDRS, accused it of "keeping secret" the findings and that "a whole-scale culture change" was needed.

In a statement, Patrick Harley, Conservative leader of Dudley Council, said: "We know we haven't always got it right, which is why we commissioned this review.

"It is not acceptable that our BAME employees are more likely to face disciplinary processes, experience bullying and not have fair access to promotion opportunities.

"Following this review, we will now be challenging ourselves to do much better."