a)    By Councillor McWilliams

Recognising the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights statement on racism & xenophobia: "Prejudice or hostility towards a person's race, colour, language, nationality, or national or ethnic origin…Intolerant discourse in the media or from politicians can lead to increased racist sentiments towards migrants and other minorities, including in the form of scapegoating," ?this Council resolves to: 

i)             Collect high-quality diversity data including conducting annual workplace surveys to analyse progress being made against Equality Objectives (2018 - 2022), including how well the organisation and Members reflect the demographic makeup of RBWM and the UK, and to identify steps to improve any disparity; findings will be reviewed and scrutinised at Corporate O&S and by members of the public. 

ii)             Introduce mandatory unconscious bias training for councillors and officers, and encourage teaching and learning about Britain’s colonial past and slavery; the Members' Code of Conduct will be amended to include a requirement to complete an annual training session. 

iii)           Write to the Secretary of State for Education asking for a more ambitious national educational standard on issues of race and gender equality, and inviting him to attend an RBWM-hosted Gender & Race Equality Conference, where residents and employers can talk and share ideas on the importance of having high-quality diversity data; creating an organisation open to all; identifying the challenges and celebrating the achievements of people of colour in RBWM.

 

 

b)   By Councillor Werner:

 

Following the profound disappointment many residents have experienced with service delivery shortcomings across a range of contracts awarded to external partners by recent administrations, it is long overdue time that the burgeoning evidence supporting an in-house delivery model is given more serious and sustained consideration. 

This Council:

i)     Will abandon its preference, quoted in the Principles of Commissioning, to seek external market solutions. 

ii)    Will, for each delivery model analysis going forward, undertake a serious study of an in-house solution and publish the results. 

iii)   Will carry out a retrospective study on all active outsourced contracts to compare their value to an in-house delivery model and publish the results. 

 

(A maximum period of 30 minutes will be allowed for each Motion to be moved, seconded and debated, including dealing with any amendments.  At the expiry of the 30-minute period debate will cease immediately, the mover of the Motion or amendment will have the right of reply before the Motion or amendment is put to the vote).

Motion a

Councillor McWilliams introduced his motion. He explained that it felt a long time since he, along with Councillors Carroll, W. Da Costa and Tisi, got together to put aside party political differences to put together a motion that set out practical steps to address the public debate around race and racism. The public debate on the issue often included reflections on the country’s history, the structures within public institutions and relations with different cultures and communities. When traversing this huge tapestry of issues it was all too easy to engage in debate about the very fabric of society and creating practical steps to advance change was sometimes more challenging.

The motion tackled this hugely important matter soberly and with clear positive outcomes in mind. Collecting high quality diversity data to compare to local demographics would enable the council to ask meaningful questions on whether there were any perceived or actual barriers to people from diverse backgrounds applying for roles. It may be that there was no issue but if there were perceived or actual barriers they could be tackled by having a greater understanding of the data. The council already collected some data; it was hoped the motion would take this to the next stage.

Engaging in regular equality and diversity training was a standard part of corporate and public institution life. There was no reason that these same standards should not be applied to councillors. Members were required to undertake training on a number of issues and ensuring any potential barriers to opportunity were addressed was hugely significant. It was also important to understand the country’s history in all its complexity, as a nation with a history dating back millennia, there were some dark chapters as well as inspirational ones. Slavery was a stain on the country’s history yet it was the Royal Navy and the British government that put an end to the slave trade. The history of empire was also complex and countless academic tomes had sought to understand its full impact. The motion asked all to encourage the fullest possible understanding of the nation’s history.

Councillor McWilliams hoped that all would support the motion to take practical steps to ensure the council was responding reasonably and with due consideration to concerns expressed around race and racism in the recent public debate.

Councillor W. Da Costa explained that he wanted tohold up a mirror of best practice. The fight for justice and equality went on from one generation to the next. Today it was the turn of this generation and the council to push further back the boundaries of inequality and injustice. Racism existed; structural inequalities existed. A rudimentary comparison of the ethnicities of councillors with ONS data for RBWM and surrounding councils indicated, amongst other things, that Black people were not just massively underrepresented at Council but the situation was getting worse.  

 

This motion being presented was propitious as the Lawrence Report entitled, “An Avoidable Crisis” had been published earlier in the day, led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of the late Stephen Lawrence. 

 

The report called for an urgent need for action to tackle health inequalities, plug the gaps in data and end structural racism through training, education, and engagement. In particular the Lawrence report called for; 

• A Race Equality Strategy, developed with Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and with the confidence of all those it affected.  
• A national strategy to tackle health inequalities 
• Equality impact assessments to be used much more effectively to shape and inform policy, and policymakers to tackle structural racism with their decisions.  
• The publicity of ethnicity pay gaps to mirror gender pay gap reporting.  
• Diversity of the school curriculum to ensure it included Black British history, colonialism and Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.  This did not deny the wonderful things the country had achieved.
• A strategy with clear targets to close the attainment gap at every stage in a child’s development 

 The proposed motion covered most of the key suggestions in the Lawrence Report, with the exception of the equality impact assessments recommendation. 

 

With this motion, the council would demonstrate it was taking action with a sense of urgency. It would will allow the council to plug the data gaps, and identify issues, annually, including health inequalities, that needed addressing. It would help make great progress on ironing out structural racism through appropriate training and education. It would also create a forum, a conference, where people could be listened to and people could learn from each other. 

 

Councillor W. Da Costa felt that the process was as important as the outcome. It would be iterative with progress steered by a cross party group. It would give people an opportunity to speak and be heard, most notably through a conference to be held in the borough. The council would reach out to experts and residents especially from the BAME communities to help reach high levels of attainment and excellence. 

 

Enthusiastic officers, who had already done some work on the issues, had advised Councillor W. Da Costa that it would be possible to apply for external funding and S106 to be able to deliver the project and pay for some expertise and consultancy.

 

 

 

Councillor W. Da Costa commented that this was a chance to subtly change the structures within RBWM to help ensure that injustices did not happen and to ensure that all worked together; a social biodiversity with all the ensuing benefits. The motion would start the work on tackling racism. Councillor W. Da Costa challenged others to bring future motions to tackle EQIAs and other protected characteristics. 

 

Councillor W. Da Costa proposed an amendment to recommendation ii to allow for greater flexibility to choose the correct types of mandatory training:

 

·         Introduce mandatory training such as unconscious bias training for councillors and officers….’

 

Mandatory training would help the council achieve consistent and excellent standards of decision making and actions.

 

Councillor McWilliams accepted the amendment.

 

Councillor Tisi thanked Councillor McWilliams for his willingness to work collaboratively on the motion. For some people in the room who might be privileged not to face discrimination in their everyday lives, it might be possible to ignore the level of inequality in society or that institutions were run in ways that disadvantaged whole groups of people. Research showed that Black boys were three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school; job applications with white sounding names were called to interview far more often than those with Asian or African sounding names. Black women in the UK were five times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than white women. It could not be ignored that structural racism was embedded with society. As an organisation, the Royal Borough should hold itself to the highest possible standards and be seeking racial equity for its employees, Members and residents. The motion offered some practical initial steps. Education was one of the best tools available. The lives and achievements of Black people should be celebrated through exhibitions and events. The council should help residents to understand the nation’s colonial past, however uncomfortable this may be. The library service already did excellent work with their reading recommendations to promote books by Black authors and on the subject of racism. Members must set an example and educate themselves through appropriate training to avoid micro-aggressions of the kinds she had sadly witnessed at council meetings such as people repeatedly mixing up people names, as well as allowing exploration of larger issues such as the lack of diversity in councillors. It was vital to ask the difficult questions and learn from the lived experiences of others. The proposed summit would be an excellent opportunity to do this. Supporting the motion was not about ticking a box and moving on, but a commitment to start a conversation about inequality in the borough.

 

Councillor Hunt stated that she believed the motion had been put forward with the best intentions. It went without saying that all consciously agreed about the beginning of the motion. The council already had a Code of Conduct, a Constitution and the Equality and Diversity Act.

In relation to the first recommendation, Councillor Hunt commented that there was already a voluntary constructive Diversity Network Meeting and a staff mandatory e-learning module. In relation to mandatory unconscious bias training, she had looked this up. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development had said ‘Unconscious bias has become a much more popular topic over recent years, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you can reduce bias and prejudice by explaining the psychology of it [to people]. In some cases, it can unleash it.’ The report highlighted an ‘extremely limited’ evidence base for unconscious bias training leading to positive change in employee behaviour.

Carmen Morris, of ‘leadership diversity and inclusion strategy for business’ had said ‘By its very nature, unconscious bias training can let the perpetrator of racism off the hook. After all, can someone really be blamed for something that they do unconsciously? It’s like blaming someone for snoring in their sleep!’ It was important to remember that unconsciousness was not sub-consciousness.

 

A report by the People Management company highlighted an ‘extremely limited’ evidence base for unconscious bias training leading to positive change in employee behaviour, concluding that diversity training ‘doesn’t usually show a sustained impact on behaviour and emotional prejudice, and alone is not sufficient to create a diverse and inclusive organisation. If some people come away from unconscious bias training with a message that ‘it's all unconscious, so it's not really my fault and everyone's got unconscious bias’, then that can increase bias.’

 

Based on the above Councillor Hunt stated that she had found no useful argument for annual mandatory unconscious bias training.

In relation to Britain’s colonial past and slavery, Councillor Hunt commented that Britain was a great empire and brought a lot to other countries and colonies.  Slavery was a different issue, it went on all over. What should be encouraged was teaching about the slavery that was going on today. It was far more important that people learnt about slavery happening today, to help those people affected. Councillor Hunt stated she was finding it hard to vote for the motion.

Councillor Coppinger commented that when he had first seen the motion he had had to think carefully about his response. He thought back to his childhood and had never realised there was an issue because everyone had looked like him and had spoken like him, but then he had thought further.  His recent antecedents had been immigrants and had come over in 1837. His grandmother’s first job was a servant in a big house in London. She hardly spoke any English because her first language was Welsh. He hoped they were all fairly treated and given equal opportunities. Two of his best friends met at university and had been together for over 25 years and brought up two fine children. There was nothing wrong with that but had they been treated fairly because they were men? Councillors, as representatives of a mixed race, mixed gender, mixed age community must make every effort to ensure that everyone was treated equally. It should also be understood that what was once done may not be acceptable today but that it was a very different world then and there were many good things done quite often by the same people. He fully supported the motion.

 

Councillor Price commented that when she had read the Motion she had been disappointed, because if the council was going to do something about bias and training she expected it to cover all protected characteristics within the Equality Duty, which had brought together all anti-discrimination legislation some ten years ago. Councillor Price reminded all of the protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnerships, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

 

The Equality Duty ensured that all public bodies, such as the council, played their part in making society fairer by tackling discrimination and providing equality of opportunity for all. It ensured that public bodies considered the needs of all individuals in its day to day work, in shaping policy, delivering services, and in relation to its employees.

 

The Equality Duty had three aims. It required public bodies to have due regard to the need to:

 

·         eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Act;

 

·         advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it; and

 

·         foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.

 

To deliver this by adhering to the law, the council required knowledge and Councillor Price suspected all did not have that knowledge.  Training was needed. The motion before Members was the first step in tackling one of the nine protected characteristics but she implored that Members and officers alike received the necessary training to cover all nine protected characteristics as soon as was practical.  She understood there was an appointment of an officer imminent with the remit of ensuring the council complied with the requirements of the Equality Duty and she urged that training was high on the agenda for all.   She urged that the implementation of the motion was not a standalone but formed part of a coherent education and training programme relating to all nine protected characteristics within the Equality Duty.

 

Councillor Rayner highlighted that the libraries and museum team already took part in Black History Month; there was a display on at the moment. The council already had expanded the employee diversity data it collected including on gender, sexual orientation and other diversities. This was published in a comprehensive work profile, the last time in September 2020. It had been published on the council website and available for scrutiny. The council had launched its Diversity Inclusion Network in October which was open to all council staff to join. The network had already held two meetings and planned to undertake a staff survey. Officers already completed a mandatory unconscious bias training at induction and as an annual refresher.

 

Councillor Walters commented that he would love to support the motion but he could not as he felt it was unnecessary. The Equality Act 2010 was in place and all had signed up to it. The motion originally put by Councillor McWilliams was perfectly acceptable as it followed the law; however the one before Members now had a lot of amendments. Councillor Walters commented that he was probably one of few who had experienced the twilight of the colonial era as he was in the British Army in northern Nigeria. There were over 1000 Nigerian troops and a mixed mess. Councillor Walters referred to a Nigerian Regimental Sergeant Major, a Hausa tribesman, who had cried when the British left because he could see what was going to happen, the eventual the Biafran war. Councillor Walters commented, in relation to the third recommendation, that the organisation was already open to all. It also referred to celebrating the achievements of people of colour. Councillor Walters questioned why this was just restricted to people of colour; he felt this was discrimination itself. He felt it was isolating and unnecessary and divided people rather than creating unity. It was also an opportunity for people to be vexatious in their accusations and referred to two examples he had experienced. He felt he got on well with everyone in the borough; there was no need for the motion. Councillor Walters also raised concern about the financial cost of the proposals.

 

The Mayor announced that the 30 minute limit on the debate had been reached, therefore no other speakers would be allowed. She asked the proposer, Councillor McWilliams, to sum up.

 

Councillor McWilliams commented that there were no direct costs arising from the motion as the data was already being collected and training was available. External funding would be sought for the conference proposal. The important element was how the data already collected was analysed and this is what the motion sought to advance. Councillor McWilliams highlighted that the amendment he had accepted ensured flexibility in relation to training to get the best course possible. He agreed with Councillor Hunt that teaching of modern day slavery was also very important. He agreed with Councillor Walters that all groups should be celebrated but there was a specific community that had done a lot for RBWM and seeing how that work could be championed was a good thing. Members could bring motions relating to other groups if they so wished.

It was proposed by Councillor McWilliams, seconded by Councillor W. Da Costa and:

RESOLVED: That this Council will: 

i)             Collect high-quality diversity data including conducting annual workplace surveys to analyse progress being made against Equality Objectives (2018 - 2022), including how well the organisation and Members reflect the demographic makeup of RBWM and the UK, and to identify steps to improve any disparity; findings will be reviewed and scrutinised at Corporate O&S and by members of the public. 

ii)             Introduce mandatory training such as unconscious bias training for councillors and officers, and encourage teaching and learning about Britain’s colonial past and slavery; the Members' Code of Conduct will be amended to include a requirement to complete an annual training session. 

iii)          Write to the Secretary of State for Education asking for a more ambitious national educational standard on issues of race and gender equality, and inviting him to attend an RBWM-hosted Gender & Race Equality Conference, where residents and employers can talk and share ideas on the importance of having high-quality diversity data; creating an organisation open to all; identifying the challenges and celebrating the achievements of people of colour in RBWM.

 

 

Motion b

 

Councillor Werner introduced his motion. He commented that residents had been rightly disappointed with the performance of many of the council’s contracts, the waste contract in particular had been stressful. During such uncertain times the council required flexibility rather than being locked into contractual arrangements that were costly to change.  There was a strong argument that whoever delivered the service was fully accountable and the council needed to be able to retain control over services, offering local training and employment opportunities and to prevent council funds leaking out of the borough. The motion was not suggesting that all services should be brought in house. It was about creating an atmosphere in which informed decisions could be made about insourcing rather than just paying lip service to the idea. The motion was also not about ideology but about practical responses to the issues the council faced, and following the evidence of many studies that showed the benefit of this approach. It could be argued that during the 1990s outsourcing was the right approach as local government was seen as costly and inefficient compared to private companies. However Councillor Werner felt this was no longer true. Local government was now perfectly capable of driving efficiencies through insourced services. Research had demonstrated that there were huge benefits for the council in being able to exercise more control and flexibility in the delivery of services. Councillor Werner stated that the issues with the waste contract in recent weeks demonstrated that outsourced services were not necessarily the answer to bad customer service and efficiency. 

 

The council could build up the skills necessary to make insourcing bids. The council had previously had officers with those skills who had moved over to commissioning. The council always seemed to be replacing staff and there was a current vacancy for a Director. This would be an opportunity to get back on board the skills to put together bids and provide direct services. Councillor Werner commented that he had deliberately not put a timetable in the motion for going back over all the current contracts. This would allow a proper schedule to be written within officer resources. For the sake of the reputation of the council, the services residents received and efficiencies, the council must back a serious approach to in-house bids. The motion would also send a message that the council backed its staff to deliver its own services.

 

Councillor Baldwin seconded the motion.

 

Councillor Del Campo commented that she believed all ward councillors would have experienced problems; in her ward there were problems of plants growing from storm drains and sewage deposited on gardens. Whilst action was now being considered, it had taken 18 months to get to that position, which was not good enough for residents. A resident had also taken over the maintenance of some vacant beds by sowing wild flowers. Councillor Del Campo questioned how the situation had arisen when the council was paying money for contracts. The motion would set the wheels in motion to properly review the effectiveness of outsourced contracts.

 

Councillor Hill stated that he supported the motion for the simple reason that the council needed to decide where core expertise lied. The council had lost sight of this. The clue was in the name, the council was the planning authority and the highways authority and had responsibility for education and adult social care. These were very serious responsibilities and therefore he felt a very high level of expertise should be kept within the borough. He was worried about overspending on outsourced contracts; the highways service had not been great since it had been outsourced.

 

Councillor Hilton commented that Councillor Werner had made a number of statements that did not stand the test of scrutiny. He accepted comments in relation to the waste contract but the most significant companies that provided services for residents were Achieving for Children (AfC) and Optalis; the council was a partner in both. Together they represented £60m, or 70%, of spend on services. In the past 6 months Ofsted had rated AfC as ‘Good’; this had been a move from ‘Requires Improvement’ in a relatively short space of time, a significant achievement for which the staff were to be congratulated. In a separate inspection the youth offending team had also been rated as ‘Good’. The council did not sit on its hands, for example it had considered the CIPFA recommendation to undertake a review of delivery options for children’s services and adult social care. A report had been submitted to Cabinet in July 2020 that looked at a number of delivery options including transfer to an in-house service. The report had concluded that continuing with the current arrangements was the best option in both cases. Councillor Hilton concluded that the council had already analysed the delivery models for the most significant services and published the results. He did not see any evidence supporting the principles of in house delivery and would therefore not be supporting it.

 

Councillor Singh welcomed the positive motion. He had seen the chaos and frustration in his ward resulting from the difficulties with the waste contract.  Residents living in blocks of flats in the town centre had not had waste picked up for weeks or months, leading to potential fire risks and hygiene issues. The problems had taken up valuable officer and Member time to rectify. This was a huge invisible cost to the borough. Whilst outsourcing was an option, it should not be the default for the council. It was ultimately the council’s responsibility and ambition to provide excellent value for money services for residents.

 

Councillor Johnson assured Members that there was no ideological presumption in favour of outsourcing over other options. Every contract was evaluated on the benefit of quality versus cost. He accepted that more focus was needed on contract management and scrutiny. He called on all Members to play their part in contract scrutiny. He agreed that all future contracts would be reviewed as part of an ongoing value for money exercise. For existing contracts at the point of renewal, the council would seriously consider the best option for the service, whether that be continued outsourcing or bringing it back in-house.

 

Councillor Reynolds commented that the motion did not propose bringing everything back in house. Instead it sought to place in house bids on the same footing as external market solutions. He highlighted that Project Centre used to be part of the council, with council employees, before the service was outsourced and allowed to receive profit from the council taxpayer. In-house services would not necessarily cost more but would provide greater accountability.

 

Councillor Brar commented that residents in her ward had not been pleased with the waste service recently. The motion did not say that all services should be brought back in house, just that they be looked at one at a time. She commented on highways issues including drains full of muck, water going into garages and weeds in the drain.

 

Councillor L. Jones commented that it was right to put in-house solutions on the same level because the strategy did say there was a preference for external market solutions. There was no doubt that some of the external market solutions had been very successful, others had not.

 

Councillor Sharpe stated that he did not believe the motion was the right motion for what was trying to be achieved. There was a wide-eyed innocence on some people’s behalf about what could be achieved internally in a council of the borough’s size.

 

Councillor Clark referred to the council’s Commissioning Strategy 2019-24. At point 3, it stated ‘It is important to state that the commissioning process is one that can and should be used for all services providing a systematic approach to determining the best way of optimising cost and outcomes but it does not automatically assume that the outcome of commissioning is outsourcing or alternative delivery models. There is no predetermination as to the outcome of how services are delivered, which could be in-house, contracted, voluntary or other provision’. Councillor Clark therefore felt the motion was spurious and misleading.

 

Councillor Knowles commented that broadly speaking all seemed to agree with the principle that the in-house option should be looked at. In the cases of both AfC and Optalis which were shared community interest companies, there was an element of both in-house service and outsourcing. The problem that CIPFA had found with the model was that agreement was needed from a wider basis of people to make changes.  In the awarding of contracts there had to be an evolutionary process. Once a contract was awarded there was nothing wrong with running other models alongside to enable a comparison to be made at set points. This would give informed hindsight. The motion was a clear strategic proposition that would better serve the council and its residents.

 

Councillor Stimson expressed her gratitude to Councillor Coppinger who had stepped in as Lead Member to deal with the waste contract issues. She highlighted that providing a waste service was an incredibly specific skill. The role was very complex and it was not something the council would want to take on itself.

 

Councillor Davey commented that he could not see anything wrong with the wording of the motion; it was common sense. In relation to the waste contract he felt a step back should have been taken rather than trying to reinvent the system.

 

Councillor Baldwin commented that the commissioning strategy was an estimable document that he recommended all should read. The motion before Members was a very modest motion and he was puzzled by the apparent rancour by which it had been received by some Members. The motion did not seek to usurp any of the prerogatives of the majority, nor did it seek in any substantial way to rewrite the commissioning strategy. It was mostly just common sense. Councillor Clark referred to the purpose of the motion being misleading and had quoted extensively from paragraph 3.3. of the strategy but completely ignored the redundant sentence the motion sought to have removed, on paragraph 3.2 which said ’Whilst the current preference is to seek external market solutions, this was not the only priority’.

 

Councillor Werner commented that he was disappointed that some of the speakers had not agreed to support the motion. He had deliberately put it forward as a non-party political motion. He emphasised that the motion was not saying everything should be insourced automatically. He was talking about taking a serious look at each area and getting the skills together to put forward sensible in-house bids. Without proper in-house skills to put together the bids it could not be argued that insourcing was being taken seriously. It was not reasonable to argue that insourcing was not a real option when it was not resourced. He had suggested how it could be resourced. Some people had moved over to commissioning and would have the skills of putting together the bids. There was also a vacancy for a Director. Councillor Werner suggested adding the ability to put together in house bids to the skill set of what the council was looking for in this post. This would show the council was taking the issue seriously for the benefit of both residents and the council’s finances.

 

The Monitoring Officer confirmed that the rules in the constitution required that the debate finish at the end of the 30 minute period and no more speakers be taken other than the proposer of the motion.

 

Upon being put to the vote, the motion fell.

 

The meeting, which began at 6.18pm, finished at 9.42pm.

 

 

 

Chairman……………………………….

 

Date…………………………………….