1. The number of roles in your council (expressed in numbers of full-time employees (FTE), that are mainly or exclusively focussed on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. For example, this could include (amongst other guises) “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer” (EDI) or “Diversity and Inclusion Project Managers”.
WBC have 1 employee focused on EDI, a Senior Specialist - Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
For all roles meeting this description, please also provide, in order of preference, either a) the salary of these roles, b) the pay band of these roles, or c) the combined total salary of these roles. Please provide the information that is most in accordance with your data processing practices.
Senior Specialist - Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
a) FTE Substantive Salary £52,805.00
b) New Local Government Grade 10 – Pay scale step NL41(£49,498) to NL46 (£54,707)
c) £52,805.00

Please also advise if the council has any plans to hire further staff in these areas within the next 18 months, and the roles/pay bands that they are likely to occupy.
Not at present.

2. Please provide the number of internal training courses attended by staff which pertain to the issues encompassed by equality, diversity or inclusivity. Please include the name of the courses, the number of attendees, and the duration of the course.
No face to face training courses are provided at a corporate level.
EDI eLearning programmes are available with module ‘Equality Diversity and Inclusion’ being mandatory for all staff.

3. Please, if possible, provide details of any internal EDI practices and networks, including the number of individuals who are members of such networks.
There are three internal networks for staff who are ethnically diverse, neurodiverse and LGBTQIA+. These are managed by and for the network members so the organisation doesn’t keep a list or have a record of numbers. In addition to training, our internal practices designed to ensure the council meets its Public Sector Equality Duty include carrying out Equality Impact Assessments on new policies, strategies, service redesign and other key decisions, these are published with committee papers.

4. Please provide details of any external contractors brought in by the council to conduct training, advice, or guidance on issues relating to EDI. Where applicable this should include costs and associated manhours.
The council has not brought in any external contractors to conduct training, advice or guidance on issues relating to EDI.

5. Please provide details of how equality, diversity and inclusivity is included in your procurement practices, the relative weight afforded to these considerations, and the current value of contracts in which EDI considerations was a part of the procurement process.
Wokingham Borough Council has a procurement strategy which sets out the Council’s aspirations and strategic approach to procurement.
Corporate Strategy for Procurement, Commissioning and Contract Management.pdf
The Council require that all procurements for goods, services or works are evaluated and subsequently awarded against mandatory and relevant assessments that have been designed to test and ensure that the goods, services or works being acquired represent both value for money to the Council and reflects the objectives of the procurement strategy. Initial considerations of the mandatory assessments is made in the procurement business case which for each contract demonstrates alignment with the Corporate strategies (Climate Emergency, Social Value, Equalities)
The procurement business case sets out the evaluation criteria for each tender, on a cost/quality split basis. Quality criteria will include equality, diversity and inclusivity in its criteria if relevant to the contract that is being awarded.
It is not possible to give a breakdown of current contracts where EDI were considered in the evaluation criteria or their weighting given as this could be considered commercially sensitive.