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NHF urges members to declare diversity figures after launch
Housing associations are being urged to submit data on diversity across their workforces, two weeks after the National Housing Federation (NHF) began asking for data on the ethnicity of staff members across the sector.
The NHF is carrying out a study on diversity in the sector, with the results due to be published at the end of November.
The sector body launched an ‘equality, diversity and inclusion data tool’ for housing associations in April, which collected data from its members about the race, gender and religion of their workforces. This was intended for these associations to collect their own data and use it internally to inform and support their own reviews and processes and ensure that their workforces reflect local communities.
However, after receiving positive feedback from those that used it, the NHF decided to broaden its scope and asked members to share their data with the organisation at the start of August.
The body has revealed to Inside Housing that so far only 11 of its approximately 800 members had so far submitted fully two weeks into that process. These associations collectively operate only 77,000 homes.
But the NHF is now pushing to get more responses and is aiming to get housing associations representing half of the country’s housing stock to reply.
A spokesperson told Inside Housing: “It’s good to see some responses come in and have a positive engagement from our membership on this, but we’re definitely hoping to get the numbers much higher.”
The deadline for responses is 23 September.
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Kate Henderson, chief executive of the NHF, said: “I’d encourage all housing associations to do this so we can build a national picture of the diversity of staff in the sector.”
The tool is also designed to allow housing associations to see how diverse their workforces are compared with their tenants. The data covers characteristics such as race, gender and religion.
Last November, the NHF warned that the sector’s action on diversity and inclusion had been “piecemeal” and called for greater leadership to tackle the issue.
It comes as the NHF announced that it had revealed data on its ethnicity pay gap for the first time. Across its 94 full-time and part-time members of staff, it found that that on a median basis those from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) background were paid 2% less than other colleagues.
Of the NHF’s staff, 18% are from a BAME background. However, this is below the organisation’s target of 30%, which it said “reflects the diversity of London where the majority of employees are based”.
The NHF also found that it had gone backwards in its performance on the gender pay gap. Women at the organisation were on average paid 13% less than their male colleagues. The last time the NHF published its pay gap in 2019, it had a 0.4% pay gap in favour of women.
Ms Henderson added: “Though we’re not legally obliged to publish this data, we’ve chosen to do so because we believe that change is best achieved when we hold ourselves publicly accountable.
“It’s clear we have work to do to better represent the diverse communities our staff live in. And we are also taking the reversal of our gender pay gap seriously and take action to close the gap as swiftly as possible.”
Update: at 01:35pm, 18.08.2021
This article was amended after receiving an update from the NHF. In the original piece, the NHF had stated there had been only 11 responses in four months, but this was incorrect. The body has only been asking for data from associations since the start of August.
