19th January 2023
MJ Article: Turning words into deeds on diversity, Nazeya Hussain and Chris Naylor
“Local government is making painfully slow progress in building representative teams.
It has taken more than a decade to see the number of black council chief executives in London increase from two to four and the wider UK picture is less of a picture, than a fading snapshot of bygone times. But we are living through crisis after modern-day crisis, and councils haven’t got time to waste anymore.
Throughout 2022 the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (Solace) worked on a series of actions based around our decision to make anti-racism a strategic priority. We did this in order to deliver on our commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion across local government. We set out to design, drive, support and lead urgent activity to tackle an issue that is contributing to a staffing and talent crisis in local government just when the sector most needs highly engaged and motivated teams who understand their local communities’ experiences and their requirements…”
Click here to read the full article by Nazeya Hussain and Chris Naylor, non-executive directors at Solace, leading on diversity and inclusion, on the MJ.