Workforce Race Equality Standard

Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) Annual Report 2025 and Actions

Introduction

We are committed to building a workforce which is valued and whose diversity reflects the communities we serve, enabling as a Trust to deliver the best healthcare to those communities.

The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) report enables the Trust to publish data on the employment experiences of our ethnically diverse staff compared to our white staff. As we continue to deliver our Trust People Plan, it is vital that we foster and grow a culture of inclusion and belonging.

There are a total of nine metrics that make up the WRES, split across workforce data, National NHS Staff Survey and Trust Board Representation. These are designed to help us track our progress in tackling inequalities in the workplace and highlight areas of focus for action to improve the employment experiences of ethnic minority staff.  The analysis of these is undertaken in the next section.

Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES): The 9 Metrics

Metric 1	Percentage of Ethnic Minority staff in each of the Agenda for Change bands 1-9, medical and dental subgroups and very senior managers (VSM), including executive board members compared with the percentage of staff in the overall workforce.
Metric 2	Relative likelihood of Ethnic Minority staff being appointed from shortlisting across all posts
Metric 3	Relative likelihood of Ethnic Minority staff entering the formal disciplinary process, compared to that of white staff
Metric 4	Relative likelihood of white staff accessing non mandatory training and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) as compared to Ethnic Minority staff
Metric 5	Percentage of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or the public in the last 12 months
Metric 6	Percentage of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from staff in the last 12 months
Metric 7	Percentage of staff believing that the Trust provides equal opportunities for career progression or promotion
Metric 8	Percentage of staff, in the last 12 months who have experienced discrimination at work from any of the following Manager, team leader or other colleague
Metric 9	Percentage difference between the organisations’ Board voting membership and its overall workforce

WRES Data 2024/25

A total of four out of the nine WRES standard metrics have shown favourable change from the previous reporting year and full details are set out below.

Metric 1

Metric 1: Percentage of staff in Agenda for Change pay-bands or medical and dental subgroups and very senior managers (including Executive Board members) compared with the percentage of staff in the overall workforce.

The 2025 data shows that 25% of our workforce (excluding bank) are from an ethnically diverse background. This is an increase of 2.0% when compared to 2024 and is above the current 2021 Census figures for Leeds which identifies that 21% of the population are from an ethnically diverse background.

Whilst it is positive that there has been an increase in the percentage of ethnically diverse staff working for the Trust when compared to the census figure for Leeds, there is clearly further work to do to ensure that the Board properly reflects the workforce and this will need to be addressed through the recruitment process as and when board appointments arise.

“Relative Likelihood” WRES Metrics Two, Three and Four.

The following three metrics indicate the likelihood of ethnically diverse (BME) candidates being appointed from shortlisting, staff entering a formal disciplinary process and staff accessing non mandatory training.

A figure of 1.0 suggests an equal position, however it is worth noting that the calculation of this data can be affected by small numbers.

Table 1

WRES Metric	Metric Description	2024 Score	2025 score
2	Relative likelihood of white staff being appointed from shortlisting compared to that of BME staff being appointed from shortlisting across all posts.	2.00	2.90

Table 1 identifies an unfavourable change in the likelihood of white staff being appointed from shortlisting compared to ethnically diverse staff. The ratio figure for 2025 indicates white staff being almost three times as likely to be appointed from shortlisting. This is an increase from 2024 which is very disappointing.

There has been a large increase in the number of ethnically diverse applicants (1164) who were shortlisted and therefore invited to interview when compared to data from 2024 (731), which in itself is positive. Potential reasons for this increase include focused recruitment activity such as, values-based recruitment, job fairs targeting areas with diverse populations and other activity as part of our widening participation work.

It is also worth noting that the Trust commenced a pilot of flipped recruitment for early career roles in April 2024. Fourteen roles have been appointed to using this method; 50% of applicants and 47% of successful candidates were ethnically diverse. This method of recruitment pre-screens applicants, removing the need for shortlisting from a Trac application form and, ensures that those individuals invited to interview are high quality candidates.

Work is underway to pilot this approach for experienced and qualified healthcare support workers in older people’s services.  If this approach is successful in attracting and appointing more ethnically diverse staff, then the recruitment team will work with services to embed this approach into business-as-usual recruitment processes.

Running alongside this work further analysis will be undertaken to understand why this increase in short-listing of ethnically diverse applicants is not leading to more ethnically diverse applicants being appointed.    

In 2024/25 there was a total of 377 appointments (excluding bank), where ethnicity was known. Of this total 28% of staff appointed were ethnically diverse and 72% were white. This is above the ethnicity representation of our overall workforce at 25%.  

Table 2

WRES Metric	Metric Description	2023 Score	2024 score
3	Relative likelihood of BME staff entering the formal disciplinary process compared to White staff.	1.93	2.37

There has again been an unfavourable change in the likelihood of ethnically diverse staff entering the formal disciplinary process. During 2024/25 there were a total of 10 individuals who entered the formal disciplinary process, with four of these being ethnically diverse colleagues.

It is important to acknowledge that the total number of formal disciplinary cases has decreased significantly, from 25 in 2023/24 to 10 in 2024/25. This reduction reflects a positive cultural shift towards a restorative and reflective approach to managing conduct, rather than a punitive one.  However, the over representation of ethnically diverse staff in formal processes remains a concern.

The introduction and embedding of the revised Disciplinary Policy in 2022, including the early-stage Decision-Making Group (DMG) process, has been a key driver in this reduction. The DMG enables early, balanced consideration of cases and has helped to de-escalate issues before they reach formal stages. To strengthen safeguards against bias, Cultural Inclusion Ambassadors are now included in all DMG discussions regardless of the nature of the allegation or the ethnicity of the individual involved. This is a deliberate step to ensure that unconscious bias does not influence early decision-making.

The data suggests that while the overall number of cases has declined, the equity of outcomes has not improved at the same pace. Further analysis is needed to understand whether the DMG process is effectively mitigating bias and supporting fair decision-making across all staff groups.

Table 3

WRES Metric	Metric Description	2023 Score	2024 score
4	Relative likelihood of white staff accessing non-mandatory training or CPD	1.00	0.75

The likelihood figure continues to show that ethnically diverse staff are more likely to access non-mandatory training or CPD.  This is postive and reflects the continued focus across the Trust to develop and deliver relevant training and CPD to support our diverse workforce. Career development sessions are an example of this, which have been developed through discussion with the Equality and Diversity team and our staff networks to inform the focus and content.

Metrics 5 to 8 Staff Survey Responces

All two of the four of the national staff survey WRES metric areas show an unfavourable change,  as detailed in Table 4 below.

Table 4 WRES Staff Survey Results – All Ethnic Groups

Metric	2021	2022	2023	2024	Year on Year Change	Rating	Sector Average	Comparison
Percentage experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or the public in the last 12 months	37.9%	35.8%	33.7%	30.7%	-3.0%	Favourable	31.6%	Better
Percentage experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from staff in the last 12 months	22.8%	22.5%	17.1%	17.8%	+0.7%	Unfavourable	21.2%	Better
Percentage believing that the organisation provides equal opportunities for career progression or promotion	42.7%	42.0%	51.9%	52.8%	+0.9%	Favourable	51.0%	Better
Percentage experiencing discrimination at work from manager/team leader or other colleagues in the last 12 months	13.3%	11.8%	10.2%	13.2%	+3.0%	Unfavourable	13.2%	Same

There has been an increase in the number of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from staff in the last 12 months as well as the number of staff experiencing discrimination at work from a manager or team leader or other colleagues in the last 12 months.

More positively there has been a decrease in the percentage of staff experiencing harassment, bullying or abuse from patients, relatives or the public in the last 12 months and an increase in the percentage of staff believing that the organisation provides equal opportunities for career progression or promotion.

All measures are the same or above our sector average.

Table 5

WRES Metric	Metric Description	2024 Score	2025 score
9	Percentage difference between the organisation’s Board voting membership and its overall workforce (BME representation).	-%7.7	-9.2%

Table 5  compares the difference between the Board voting membership and our overall ethnically diverse workforce. The ethnicity representation in our workforce has increased year on year. If this trend continues and the the number of ethnically diverse voting members of the Board remains the same, the disparity will show a year on year increase. The recruitment of a more diverse board is something that will need to be considered as Board members step down.

WRES Progress 2024/25

During 2024/25, work was undertaken to address issues raised in the previous year’s WRES and WDES (Workforce Disability Equality Standard), including the following:

• Appointment of a new substantive head of EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) who will start in September 2025
• Recruitment of ten new cultural inclusion ambassadors
• Roll-out of Values Based Recruitment across key services
• Piloted a cultural competence training programme
• Piloted flipped recruitment for apprentices in a number of services including estates and finance
• From July 2025 it is mandatory for recruiting managers to undertake the Trust’s recruitment and selection training and renew it every three years. Failure to do so will prohibit them from recruiting staff for their service or team.

WRES 2024/25 Proposed Actions

Despite this work the Trust’s performance has deteriorated in a number of areas over the last 12 months which means that there needs to be a real focus given to this area of work going forward to improve things for staff.

Reflecting on the data and feedback from staff it is proposed to focus on the following actions for the next 12 months:

• Establish a Strategic Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) group that will provide clear leadership to the EDI agenda, set the strategic direction and ensure actions are being delivered upon. This group will be chaired by the Chief People Officer and the first meeting will take place in September 2025.
• Develop a Resolving Concerns policy and procedure to replace the current approach to grievance and bullying and harassment complaints. This will be a further step to prevent unnecessary escalation of issues into formal process to improve the experience of our colleagues. The new approach will also ensure a timely response to complaints of bullying and harassment within the Trust. The review will take place during 2025 with a planned launch by the end of March 2026.
• Undertake a listening exercise with the staff networks to understand how the Trust can better support ethnically diverse and other staff with protected characteristics, with their career development.  
• Review the recruitment and selection training to ensure that the existing unconscious bias training is as robust as possible, ensuring recruitment panels are reflective.
• Reflect on the review of the Cultural Competence Training pilot develop a plan to deliver this training to staff across the Trust – with a focus on hotspot areas.
• Provide some dedicated support to the Trust’s Staff networks to support their development and growth which is an essential component on helping staff feel valued and supported. The networks also provide a valuable source of knowledge and peer support.