It is the role of local government leaders to make the decisions that will best deliver for the communities that they represent. That much is obvious.
How can they do this, however, if they are not accurately representative of those very communities?
Great strides have been made in ensuring that everyone, regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, or social class is represented in some way within local government. Chief Executive of Westminster City Council Stuart Love joins host Dan Benn to talk about why this work is important, the different work that is being done in Westminster, and how his background influences his stance on equality and diversity.
Touching on his leadership model, Stuart said:
“I do wear my heart on my sleeve as a leader, and that’s not for everybody. I get that. I don’t think that there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to this.
“The most important thing for me, though, is this has got to be led by the people at the top of the organisation… The whole thing around EDI (equality, diversity, and inclusion) is not something that can be farmed out to somewhere else.”
Stuart also discussed how success in diversity and inclusion can be measured within the public sector:
“The public sector is not very good at talking about why this is such an important thing. But if you look at the changes in our organisation, that fact that our organisation is now much more representative of our communities… the organisation has increased by 10% in terms of our global majority staff over the last six years.
“That means we’ve gone from being around 32% to now 42% of our organisation and, because of that, we have much greater resident satisfaction and residents feel more engaged.”
To make sure you get Stuart’s expert insight on such a key issue for leaders around the country, listen to Episode 51 of the Public Sector Executive Podcast.
