Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) annual report for 2024 to 2025.
The Best City Ambition is our overall vision for the future of Leeds. At its heart is our mission to tackle poverty and inequality and improve quality of life for everyone who calls Leeds home.
The Best City Ambition aims to help partner organisations and local communities in every part of Leeds to understand and support the valuable contribution everyone can offer – no matter how big or small – to making Leeds the best city in the UK.
The Equality Improvement Priorities 2021-2025 have been produced to ensure that the council meets its legal duties under the Equality Act 2010 and to complement the Best City Ambition. The council’s equality improvement priorities have considered the protected characteristics as required under the Equality Act 2010. We continue to recognise poverty as a barrier that limits what people can do and can be. We have, therefore, included priorities that address poverty as we recognise that several protected characteristics are disproportionately represented in those living in poverty.
We are conscious that there is not an equality priority for every protected characteristic, but all characteristics are considered. We are committed to equality for all our citizens and believe that improving a service for one community will have a positive impact for all communities. We will continue our work across all the protected characteristics, whether there are specific equality improvement priorities which are explicitly focusing on them. We will consider all communities when we give due regard to equality at both strategic level and operational activities.
The population of Leeds as of the most recent release of data from the 2021 census is 812,000, an increase of 8.1% from 2011 when the population was 751,000. This is the third largest rise in Yorkshire and the Humber behind Selby (10.2%) and Wakefield (8.4%). The Yorkshire and Humber average is 3.7%. The increase in population of England and Wales overall is 6.3%. Leeds remains the second largest local authority area by population after Birmingham. In Leeds there has been an increase in the population aged 65 and over of 15.7% (compared to England and Wales at 20.1%) and of children aged under 15 years of 12.4% (compared to England and Wales at 5%).
Looking at the projected population 2018 to 2028 (ONS 2016-based projections):
The makeup of the city is outlined below (please see appendix 2 for further detail):
Socio-economic analysis (notably the analysis based on the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation and the 2019 update of the council’s Poverty Fact Book) show that a range of inequalities persist across the city and, linked with deprivation levels, are particularly concentrated in specific localities with long-term related challenges such as access to employment, housing, language and literacy, skills, health, and care responsibilities.
A significant number of people in Leeds were already being impacted by low income and poverty before COVID-19 took effect in March 2020. The slow economic recovery alongside reductions in public spending has significantly impacted the poorest members of society. The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2019 show the geographic concentration of deprivation in the communities of Inner East and Inner South Leeds, confirming the wider analysis of poverty and deprivation undertaken in the Joint Strategic Assessment of 2018
Based on the IMD 2019:
A refreshed approach to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, including a Vision Statement and Action Plan, was developed to move us ‘up a gear’ on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda and was agreed by Executive Board in February 2023. It supports the strategic policy and governance already in place around this agenda including our Equality and Diversity Policy, Due Regard (Equality Impact Assessment process), Equality Improvement Priorities and Equality Annual Report, the Corporate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board, and policies around employment, procurement and partnership working. A refreshed Vision and Action Plan (2025 to 2029) accompanies this year's annual report; however, in the appendix we will be looking back on progress against the 15 actions in the Vision Action plan that have been in place since 2023.
Our ambition is for Leeds to be a city that is fair and just, that recognises and embraces people’s different needs, situations, and ambitions. A city where the barriers that limit what people can do will be removed, and everyone will be enabled to be their best. For this to happen, we all need to take responsibility for our actions and behaviours and contribute positively to change. Although the council has legal responsibilities concerned with Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, we want to do more on this agenda because it is the right thing to do and there is a need to do more over and beyond statutory requirements. Delivery of a successful programme around Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is essential to support our Best City Ambition. The Best City Ambition is our vision for the future of Leeds. At its heart is our mission to tackle poverty and inequality and improve the quality of life for everyone who calls Leeds their home.
There has been a notable societal shift with significant events over the past few years, not least the increasing awareness of violence against women and girls, the inequalities exacerbated and exposed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, the ongoing impact of Brexit, and a significant rise in the reporting of hate crimes against protected characteristic groups. This has raised expectations, with strong calls for greater and faster change. We see this shift as a positive opportunity, and we are keen to move up a gear.
As an important next step, the Vision Statement and accompanying action plan set out 3 areas for action covering the council’s role as:
By building on the good work we already do and using the iAnsight from a broad range of stakeholders, we aim to target our actions and resources in the right areas. The views of Leeds communities, local people, our partners, council teams and employees are crucially important to success. These views have shaped the action plan and will continue to do so moving forward in the refreshed version for 2025-29, with our Equality Assembly, Equality Hubs and Staff Networks playing a key role alongside the many valuable and varied engagement channels that we have in Leeds.
The refreshed Action Plan 2025-29 will be kept under regular review to ensure it stays relevant to the changing times we live in and will be amended annually if required.
We will report continue to progress against the Action Plan every year via this Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Annual Report and the most recent full year (April 2024 to March 2025) updates can be found in sections 3 to 5.
Updates on our progress against the Equality Improvement Priorities have been incorporated within the section on service delivery through the council. It will remain a fluid document to account for any significant events that require a more tailored and specialist intervention.
Results from the 2021 census show that the city is becoming increasingly diverse with more people from ethnically diverse communities, larger numbers observing diverse faiths or identifying with no faith, more people who were born overseas, significant numbers of disabled people and, for the first time, data on sexual orientation and gender identity showing an above national average number of people as identifying as LGBT+.
As already mentioned, the last decade has seen the city and nation face multiple significant challenges which have often impacted disproportionally on people from protected groups, including economic challenges resulting in austerity, Brexit and community tensions, a rise in hate crime, the pandemic, and the current cost of living crisis.
The Equality Act has been in place since 2010 and communities expect a faster and more clearly outcome-based focus moving forward. Disabled people still struggle to access buildings and services because barriers remain in place. Discrimination against people based on race and sexual orientation continues to take place in society. Women and girls face increasing discrimination, harassment, and sexual violence. People from across the protected characteristics are still under-represented in positions of authority and in multiple sectors of the economy and society.
The Action Plan identifies 5 high level priorities against the People and Communities workstream and an update against each of these is provided below:
The council has equality consultation and engagement forums for the main protected characteristics (the Equality Hubs) for LGBT+, Religion or Belief, and Disability, which are facilitated directly by the Safer and Stronger Communities Team, and for Race (the Culturally Diverse Hub), Women and Girls, and Older People, which are facilitated on the council’s behalf by Voluntary Action Leeds, Women’s Lives Leeds and Leeds Older People's Forum respectively. Collectively, these Hubs are known as the Equality Assembly and have been in place since 2009/10.
The Hubs are led by ‘Hub Representatives’ who are members of communities with support from the council and our partner organisations. They meet throughout the year and are a platform for council services and other organisations to get advice, guidance, support, and constructive challenge around the development of service delivery. As well as the meetings, the Equality Assembly and Hubs have an extensive mailing list and social media to communicate with members.
We undertook a light touch review of the Assembly and Hubs during the first half of 2024 and this focused on arrangements for recruiting Hub Representatives and ensuring the voices of Carers and Children and Young People are represented effectively.
During 2024-25 we have made considerable progress in developing the Older People's Hub in conjunction with Leeds Older People's Forum, expanded collaboration with the Culturally Diverse Hub (Race Equality) in conjunction with Voluntary Action Leeds, and launched the refresh of LGBT+ Inclusive Leeds through the LGBT+ Hub. We have also developed an approach to developing Disability Inclusive Leeds in conjunction with the Disability Hub, with 5 workstreams now underway with an ambition of completing this work and reporting back on progress in next year's annual report. The 5 workstreams are:
For several years, the council has been lighting the civic buildings and encouraging other building owners and managers in the city with the capacity to light their facilities as well to celebrate a wide variety of international days (alongside national civic and local charity events). In addition, flags are raised for a variety of days from the Civic Hall or Town Hall, including for LGBT+ events, International Day of Older People, Interfaith Week and Windrush amongst others. A process for assessing these requests is in place through the council’s governance team supported by Safer and Stronger Communities colleagues.
Starting in 2022 a new programme of lighting civic buildings was agreed in conjunction with Leeds Faith Forum and Concord Interfaith to celebrate important faith days, which has been very well received by faith communities.
The Equality Team also hold a budget for supporting activity throughout the year delivered either directly by Safer and Stronger Communities Team, third sector partners or, frequently, a collaboration between both. Some examples of this include:
In addition to the work on EDI, progress is also taking place against the Hate Crime agenda. The Hate Crime Strategic Board and the Operational Group provide strategic leadership and operational capacity to deliver the city’s Hate Crime Strategy. Key outputs in the last 12 months have included:
The Equality Team work closely in partnership with colleagues who support the third sector and share resources and capacity between both functions which assists with the important collaboration on building third sector EDI capacity.
Current examples of development work in this area include ongoing work to support the city’s ambition to have an LGBT+ Resource Centre through Pride of Place, and working closely with Women’s Lives Leeds in collaboration with colleagues in Safer Stronger Communities around the consultation and engagement platform that is the Women and Girls Hub and with a particular focus on misogyny. A misogyny working group involving key partners started to meet early in 2025 and intends to bring forward recommendations in the first calendar quarter of 2026. Leeds Older People's Forum, as the commissioned organisation, are continuing to work with the Equality Team to strengthen engagement and increase turnout at their meetings.
We have significantly strengthened our partnerships during the last 12 months around the EDI and associated agendas. Examples of this include:
Following a successful visit from the council of Europe in 2022 that commended our approach and commitment to becoming an Intercultural City, the council has continued its efforts to develop a cohesion strategy for the city that aims to bring different communities together to build a stronger and more cohesive city.
A public survey was launched during the first quarter of 2023/24, alongside focus groups with community groups and consultation with young people, which has been extensively promoted asking for citizens’ input. An extensive analysis of the results of the public survey and focus groups has been undertaken and the findings have been incorporated into a draft ‘Stronger Leeds Strategy and Plan which will be brought to Executive Board in the Autumn of 2025.
As part of the review and refresh of the EDI Vision and Action Plan it is proposed that the number of key strategic actions for the People and Communities workstream will be reduced to 3 and these will be:
The Action Plan identifies 5 high level priorities against the Service Delivery workstream and an update against each of these is provided as follows:
The council’s approach to giving due regard is delivered via our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Impact Assessment (EIA) process which is required under both law and council policy for all decision making. It is well developed and well used. However, training for officers had not taken place since before the pandemic and having started to undertake training during 2023-24 we have continued to deliver these sessions across the council as we seek to maintain and strengthen the quality as well of the quantity of due regard being given.
Working with Corporate Governance we are considering how to undertake light touch audits of the quality of the due regard given across the organisation during 2025.
We are also reviewing the 4 existing documents used to record due regard and reduce these to 2 combined screenings and full impact assessment templates, merging the existing separate forms for workforce and service delivery. In addition, we will consider how to incorporate Socio Economic considerations into our Impact Assessment process. Once complete during 2025 this will be accompanied by extensive communications to report writers and decision makers.
Colleagues across the council have detailed their progress against the equality improvement priorities to assist with the development of this annual report and these can be found further below in this service delivery section.
The council has established a range of governance arrangements across all levels of the organisation for both officers and Elected Members and these include:
Work is complete to review and strengthen all the content on the Equality Toolkit on Insite which provides information to staff on the EDI agenda as well as the content on leeds.gov which provides information to citizens. Work has also been finalised to refresh all of the pages on leeds.gov/equality including new content on the council's Equality Assembly and Equality Hubs.
Extensive work took place during 2024-25 to develop an Anti Discrimination campaign under the slogan ‘What Makes us Different Makes us Leeds’. The campaign with the #Stop includes all the protected characteristics and launched in early 2025-26 across electronic billboards and paper poster drums and posters frames across the city centre. It has been backed up by a social media campaign, paper based resources (posters and leaflets) and a comms plan involving press releases. Extensive consultation with key partners on the EDI agenda took place to help shape the final product.
A communications plan for Equality Diversity and Inclusion including the outward promotion of all International Days, weeks and months has been developed between Safer and Stronger Communities Team and Corporate Communications Team.
The first editions of a quarterly newsletter on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion were produced and distributed by the Equality Team in Safer and Stronger Communities for staff and these will continue to be produced throughout 2025-26.
All council internal communications to senior managers, all managers and all staff regularly include information relating to the EDI agenda.
Work to mitigate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis has focused on ensuring people and communities most impacted, are linked to support and advice in the city. The strategic and operational arrangements have representation from across council and health services, and a range of external partners including the third sector. This ensures that the approach has been considered from a range of perspectives and concerns/issues highlighted at the earliest opportunities. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion has been integral to Executive Board Cost of Living reports and the work has been consulted upon at the Equalities Assembly, and through a wide range of groups and forums including those specifically representing the equality characteristics groups.
The Financial Inclusion Team within Leeds City Council’s Communities, Housing and Environment directorate works on multiple projects and strategies to mitigate the impact of poverty and inequality in the city. Work is based on an evidence-based approach, collaboration and partnership working with a range of diverse partners and external agencies, many of whom work directly with people and communities experiencing financial exclusion to ensure projects, and initiatives are directed and influenced by real lived experience.
Delivered in collaboration with partners, Financial Inclusion training covers a range of issues including Leeds Money Information Centre and routes to support, cost-of-living crisis, child poverty and gambling harms. Sessions have led to a significant number of staff, volunteers, frontline services and elected members increasing knowledge and understanding of the diverse needs and experiences of people in poverty, as well as the support options available in Leeds.
Despite the strong, established supportive infrastructure in Leeds, the actions undertaken have not been enough to prevent increasing numbers of households falling into poverty and hardship. The cost-of-living crisis exacerbated the situation, with worsening inequalities and financial difficulty, particularly for low-income households. Funding instability and cuts to local authority, NHS and third sectors continue to increase the pressures, challenging the operations of services, at a time of rising need. Cross sector examples of organisations reaching untenable positions are being seen, with necessary service reviews, reductions and policy changes being considered which are detrimental to the capacity and capability of support in the city. The focus for the financial inclusion team will continue to be tackling poverty and inequality across the city, for all Leeds residents.
As part of the review and refresh of the EDI Vision and Action Plan it is proposed that the number of key actions for the Service Delivery workstream will be reduced to three and these will be:
We recognise that children from some backgrounds protected by equality law are at risk of having a poorer start in life and are at more risk of being in state care or in custody. The purpose of this priority is to address this inequality of outcome, reducing its impact and prevalence so that all the youngest citizens of Leeds are protected, grow up having fun and are supported in their family wherever possible.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Looking at the most recently available data published in March 2023, it can be said that even by the lowest estimate, 1 in 5 children in Leeds are living in poverty.
The Child Poverty Strategy 2024-27 is a cross-council strategy which focuses on mitigating the impact of poverty experienced by children and young people in Leeds. Progress on work undertaken within each priority is provided regularly at bi-monthly board meetings chaired by the lead executive member for Children and Families. The Child Poverty Strategy outcomes are significant and help to support the most deprived families. Key examples include the Healthy Holidays programme.
In 2024, the programme reached a total of 9,751 children and young people. In addition, the programme funded 39 schools, 42 third sector organisations and 10 council provisions for the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. A total of 4,858 children and young people were reached during Easter (3,629 primary aged children and 1,229 secondary aged children), in summer 3,203 children and young people were reached (2,584 primary aged children, 616 secondary aged children) and at Christmas 1,690 children were reached (1,287 primary aged children, 403 secondary aged children).
Leeds City Council are the only local authority who have a dedicated team supporting Gypsy Roma Traveller families embodying the council’s ambition to be a truly child-friendly city. The GRT Team are a team of 5 family support workers who play a pivotal role in relationship building, signposting and aligning service delivery for the Roma community. The team proactively address the challenges and opportunities presented by Roma migration through a range of projects such as the provision of bespoke daily drop-ins. In 2024 the GRT Team supported 831 individuals through their daily drop-ins. In addition, between January 2024 to January 2025, 350 families were provided Early Help support by the GRT team. Referrals were received directly from Duty and Advice, CSWS, schools, health, third sector and self-referrals.
Roma families face many health inequalities, and during 2024 the team were instrumental in campaigns to support the community in raising awareness of headlice, measles and scabies. The support the team were able to offer families impacted by scabies was heralded in the Chief Officer of England’s annual report as excellent practice that other local authorities could learn from.
Alongside its partners, One Send Services meet regularly as part of the "Culturally Responsive Services (CRS) Action Group," established in 2020. Over the last year, teams have analysed the home language data for families on caseload and are translating new parent/carer information into community languages. In addition, teams are standardising good practice with using language interpreters, resulting in frontline staff feeling more confident to ask families about culture and ethnicity. A further benefit is that parent/carers have access to more home language information.
The Leeds Local Offer provides information for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families in a single place. Local authorities are required to publish a Local Offer, setting out in one place information about the provision expected to be available across education, health and social care for children and young people in their area who have SEN or are disabled, including those who do not have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. In setting out what they ‘expect to be available’, local authorities should include provision which they believe will actually be available.
The Early Help review concluded in April 2024 and sought to review the delivery of services, make cost savings and develop a model of multi-disciplinary and integrated Family Hubs. Seven Family Hubs have now been established in Leeds which bring together social work, family support, specialist coordinators from established third sector organisations providing specialist support in relation to mental health, domestic abuse and substance use and the police. In recognition of the demand for SEND services, a SEND coordinator has been recruited for each Family Hub.
In addition, the Family Information Service and Early Help Service have joined together to develop a comprehensive website to ensure that all information for children and families is digitally accessible for children, families and partner agencies. The website includes a comprehensive offer of information for people requiring information on a range of services, including childcare funding and support and services for families aged 0-5, 5-11 and 11-19.
The Fostering Service strives to ensure that the children and young people they work with are offered a wealth of activities and new experiences that aim to enrich their lives. They also work very closely with families by responding to feedback to ensure the interests of children and young people are met. They put together events and opportunities for fostering families. The service aims to deliver 2 to 3 activities per week during school holidays which include events solely for the young people; ‘family fun days’; events for carers; and events for the birth or adopted children of foster carers. In 2024 the service offered 4 residentials stays at Herd farm activity and residential Centre for ages 8 to 17yrs. In addition, 2 coach loads of families were taken to the Flamingo Land resort for the service’s annual fostering day trip away.
The Youth Justice Service continues to identify the over-representation of black, mixed heritage children, and children from GRT communities in the Youth Justice System. The YJS identifies that over-representation is a systemic issue and seeks to address disproportionality both operationally and strategically. Over the last year some of the work done to address overrepresentation includes Black History Month; the service ran events in teams and with children across the month, which culminated in an event at the end of the month themed on reclaiming narratives. The event was attended by children, staff and partners and was a huge success.
In February a whole service briefing focusing on disproportionality was delivered. This briefing looked at the national and local picture with regards to disproportionality and supported staff to look at what is within their sphere of influence to tackle the issue.
Addressing the bullying and discrimination children and young people experience is one element of Child Friendly Leeds Wish 4. Over the last year a significant amount of work has undertaken to progress this wish including a series of surveys to find how C&FS Services, schools and third and voluntary sector are addressing the bullying children and young people experience and supporting those children and young people that have been bullied or discriminated against.
In November 2024 a Yorkshire and Humber Children and Young People Mental Health and Wellbeing (CYPMH&W) Group was established to improve children and young people’s mental health by reducing bullying in acknowledgement of the fact that bullying can have a devastating and lasting effect, impacting children throughout their lives and into adulthood. Leeds City Council joined this group and has become an active member.
The CCQM is an accreditation scheme which focuses on improving the cultural responsiveness of organisations and individuals in Leeds. It has been extensively implemented across various organisations, internal teams, and schools, both locally in Leeds and nationally. Within Leeds, 19 internal teams have engaged in CCQM activities, including training sessions, team meetings, and action learning sets. These teams span across different sectors such as social work, family help, corporate parenting, health and wellbeing, and ICT services. The training has focused on unconscious bias, cultural competency, and equity and diversity, helping these teams to understand the impact of bias on practice and to better recognise the importance of cultural responsiveness in implementing inclusive practices.
Supporting Families who live in Poverty is Wish 8 of the Leeds 12 wishes and one of our objectives is to raise awareness of the support available to families. As a result, a blog page has been created as a communication tool to families which is now linked to Leeds Money Information Centre. In addition, briefing sessions are held regularly for practitioners to raise awareness of support available.
To support school attendance, the team provides FreshStart which is a 4 week programme delivered to school age children. The programme equips children with the foundational life skills, aspirations, and competencies needed to thrive in modern UK society. Over 30 sessions were completed during 2024 within primary and secondary schools. Feedback from children who participated in the programme showed a deeper appreciation for the value of education in building a successful future.
Sharing knowledge and good practice has promoted a culture of respect among frontline staff for the unique identities, values, and cultural differences of families and the broader communities across Leeds. Cultural broker volunteers are currently creating videos in home languages, to explain the support available in a culturally sensitive way. The working group are requesting that all reports sent to parent/carers use QR codes for translation apps on Smartphones to allow parents to access information in their home language.
In the last 12 months the service has delivered the fifth Leeds Local Offer Live event for families, the event is a marketplace event with over 50 SEND services providing information, advice and support to families. In addition, the service launched and hosted monthly SEND information drop-in sessions for parents and carers in partnership with SENDIASS, Leeds Parent Carer Forum, Carers Leeds, CHAD and Speech and Language Therapy Service.
The service continues to grow and promote the Leeds Local Offer Facebook group, which now has over 1.5k followers. The Facebook group provides a platform to share with families updates about SEND services along with events and activities taking place in the city.
Family Hubs take a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach to supporting families and teams benefit from weekly, group supervision to review their work with families through a multi-disciplinary lens. Family feedback is regularly sought to ensure the hubs do more of what works well, and this supports positive outcomes for children and families.
In addition, the Family Hubs take an asset-based community development approach to delivery and a key part of their remit is engaging with communities and the wider partnership to tailor their approaches to the specific needs of localities. Let’s Talk events have been arranged to ensure that Family Hubs hear the voices of people with lived experience who can influence service delivery of early help within these spaces.
The Youth Justice Service had an independent culture audit undertaken which highlighted the need for the service to demonstrate a commitment to being anti-racist. To address this, along with above, the communications have been delivered to staff reiterating the service’s commitment to being anti-racist, and to encourage staff to speak up, and provide reassurance that unacceptable behaviours will be dealt with appropriately.
To aid Children and Families Services Staff to support the most vulnerable children and young people, including those that have experienced bullying and discrimination, a series of Health and Wellbeing bitesize learning sessions were delivered in May, June and July 2024 which included 4 sessions hosted by the NSPCC. The sessions covered a range of areas including online safety, online bullying, gaming and social media.
In addition, the CYPMHH&W group discussed above, decided to develop a survey that members of the group could carry out with their local schools to be able to develop a shared understanding of what definitions of bullying are consistently being used across the region to learn more about what schools are doing to address bullying and whether schools are recording the bullying incidents that occur.
A review of recruitment processes has taken place to ensure all recruitment is inclusive and not subject to unconscious bias. We are committed to ensuring that the teams delivering support to vulnerable children and families are diverse and reflect the communities they are serving in order to be able to engage marginalised communities. This is one way in which we intend to address the disproportionate number of ethnically diverse children and families in statutory services. An example of this is in Early Help who have been recruiting to several new posts following the conclusion of the Early Help review in April 2024. They ensured that we have followed EDI in terms of recruitment and have recruited a diverse workforce as a result. Work is ongoing with sider recruitment as part of the WRES programme which Leeds is participating in.
The team are currently developing sessions for parents to raise awareness around school admissions, the benefits of education, and the importance of attendance. In addition, the team are running focused sessions with headteachers on working together to improve attendance and attainment within the GRT community. In addition, the GRT Team will lead the delivery of a series of all staff briefings in June 2025 as part of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History (GRT) Month. These briefings will be dedicated to honouring the cultural heritage and contributions of Gypsy Roma communities while fostering informed dialogue. Key topics of the briefings will include Understanding Gypsy Roma Communities, Challenges in Engagement, and Strategies for Effective Engagement
In September 2025 staff will facilitate a Continued Professional Development (CPD) ‘learning week’ focused on EDI. Staff will sign up to 1 hour workshops on different topics spread out across the week, to look at resources and chat about good practice, etc. The workshops will be led by staff and an provide an opportunity to meet across teams to talk about specific areas such as using interpreters.
Over the next 12 months the service will continue to promote the Local Offer to families, and work with services to ensure that families receive information about the SEND services available in Leeds. The service is currently working with SENDIASS and the Leeds Parent Carer Forum to produce information in alternative languages for families where English is a second language.
A Best Start page is currently in development to ensure that families are able to access information relating to the Leeds approach for children from conception. Progress around this will feed into the Best Start and Beyond Alliance Working Group.
In addition to the existing Family Community Work Coach Manager and Family Community Work Coach who sit within the Families First team, the service is now benefitting from an additional 6 Community Work Coaches. Each Community Work Coach will be aligned to a respective Family Hub and associated Children’s Centres to support the Government agenda to Get Britain Working. This will provide significant, additional resource to address the employment, education and training opportunities for some of our most vulnerable and marginalised families.
Addressing disproportionality is considered to a significantly important issue to be addressed by both C&FS Leadership Team and members of the Leeds Youth Justice Partnership Board. Consequently “Addressing disproportionality in the Youth Justice System in Leeds” will be both an area of focus for the Children and Families new Equality Improvement Priorities for 2025-29 and a key priority area for the Leeds Youth Justice Partnership Board. In order to discharge the responsibilities of the YJS Partnership Board, it has been agreed that a subgroup is required to focus on this priority area. The role of the Disproportionality Subgroup will be to identify and address inequalities in the youth justice system in relation to any of the 9 protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act 2010 and the locally adopted protected characteristic, care experienced. Initial members of the subgroup have been determined and the first meeting of the subgroup took place on 8 April 2025. The group will provide progress updates to the Leeds YJS Partnership Board and the C&FS EDI Board on a regular basis.
The areas of focus as part of CFL Wish 4 are also considered to be important areas to continue to address in Children and Families Services. Therefore, ‘addressing bulling and discrimination’ and ‘celebrating differences and diversity’ are 2 of the other areas of focus for the directorate’s new EIPs for 2025-29.
Work is ongoing to address the bullying and discrimination experienced by children and young people. For example, the school bullying that was circulated to schools for the Yorkshire and Humber Children and Young People Mental Health and Wellbeing (CYPMH&W) Group will be recirculated to encourage more schools to respond to the survey. Discussions are also taking place with the group as to whether an anti-bullying definition should be developed that could be shared with schools across the region. Initial consultation work is planned to be undertaken with schools, parents and children and young people to gain their views on this proposal and what they believe such a definition should include.
We recognise that children from some backgrounds protected by equality law have poorer educational outcomes. The purpose of this priority is to address this inequality of outcome, reducing its impact and prevalence so that all the youngest citizens of Leeds do well in learning and have skills for life. In all our work, we will be particularly mindful of race-based inequalities to align with the approach to race equality in learning settings.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
The update focuses on specific initiatives and programmes aimed at improving educational outcomes for children from diverse backgrounds and efforts to reduce disparities in educational attainment. Items in the update include the following:
The Closing the Gap Strategy is dedicated to closing the attainment gaps and fostering a culture of excellence and diversity within our schools and settings. The strategy is aligned to the Refreshed 3As strategy, the Best City plan, and LCC EDI Vision and is updated by the officers across Children and Families services working towards the twelve strategy objectives.
Work done over last 12 months includes:
Objective 1: Improving literacy and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
Downloadable multilingual vocabulary resources for science and mathematics have been produced and shared with schools alongside strategies for improving oracy in mathematics. The promotion of electronic devices for vocabulary acquisition has been encouraged, and Word Aware training has been delivered to primary schools.
Objective 2: Improve access and engagement in reading and writing
High impact reading comprehension strategies have been promoted through workshops on reading strategies delivered at network meetings and conferences. The Arooj Project equipped staff with skills to identify barriers in writing for Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils and has engaged parents and carers in supporting writing development, culminating in a celebration of writing at the Civic Hall.
Objective 5: Increasing access to learning for pupils with English as an Additional Language (EAL)
The EAL Champions programme has been delivered to primary schools in Leeds, with a resource pack created to support EAL learners. An EAL summer school for new arrivals was delivered during the summer holidays, hosted at CATCH with the aim of supporting the development of English to enable smoother transition into school.
To improve outcomes for Roma communities, a summary guide for supporting GRT learners was created and shared with schools. A deep dive into the Roma community to gather information to support the development of a Roma education strategy was conducted. Case studies were then generated to support the development of a resource and training tool. In addition, contributions have been made to the Cultural Cohesion Toolkit, with Roma outcomes data shared with colleagues from the Health Needs Assessment (HNA) task group.
The CCQM is accreditation scheme which focuses on improving the cultural responsiveness of organizations and individuals in Leeds. It has been extensively implemented across various organisations, internal teams, and schools, both locally in Leeds and nationally. Within Leeds, 19 internal teams have engaged in CCQM activities, including training sessions, team meetings, and action learning sets. These teams span across different sectors such as social work, family help, corporate parenting, health and wellbeing, and ICT services. The training has focused on unconscious bias, cultural competency, and equity and diversity, helping these teams to understand the impact of bias on practice and to better recognise the importance of cultural responsiveness in implementing inclusive practices.
Additionally, 21 schools in Leeds have participated in CCQM Unconscious Bias training sessions on bias with a focus on race. These schools have benefited from tailored training that addresses unconscious biases and promotes cultural competence among staff and students.
New Role Model Stories resource packs have been shared with schools (March 2025). The videos and resources, which include real-life stories and engaging activities, are easy to navigate now through the suggested age guides included in these packs. In addition The Diversity Role Models Upstander Animation Series has been shared with schools - Teachers use these animations to reinforce key messages from Diversity Role Model workshops or as standalone tools to promote kindness, inclusion, and allyship. With clear themes and ready to use resources, they support meaningful classroom conversations around LGBTQ+ inclusion and help embed these values into a whole school approach to RSHE and anti-bullying.
Every activity of the Virtual School is designed to reduce the inequalities that arise for children who have required a social care intervention at some point in their lives.
To help our children be ‘ready’ for school and to improve outcomes in the early years, the Virtual School commissioned the LEAPlets programme, delivered by the team from Building Underdeveloped Sensory Systems (BUSS) for looked after children aged 3 and 4.
The service delivered a programme of school ‘consultations’ on the themes of attendance, positive destinations and reducing NEET, social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs, cognition and learning and therapeutic approaches to trauma informed education with the support of the therapeutic social work service.
The Virtual School ‘lines of enquiry’ tool has been incorporated into the Youth Justice Service (YJS) assessment toolkit to assess the suitability of Education, Employment and training (ETE). The tool supports practitioners to seek helpful, accurate and meaningful information from education settings.
The Leading Learning Partnership (LLP) is a system-led programme of professional learning, grounded in research which provides opportunities for leaders and subject leaders to get better at the things that make the biggest difference to students. The one desired outcome of the LLP programme is to support the delivery of an exceptional curriculum leading to high quality teaching and learning for all students.
In 2024/25 33 secondary schools from Leeds, including Academies, Maintained, and SEND settings were part of the LLP. Examples of work undertaken in 2024/25 include:
Following an increase in demands on the service and workforce challenges resulting in a drop in statutory performance, Leeds City Council reviewed its EHC assessment, plan, and annual review processes to identify key opportunities for change. The review has identified areas for improvement in the council's communications, processes, support provided, and consistency in approaches.
Our aim is to implement changes and improvements, to help the council achieve its vision that children and young people in Leeds with SEND have the best possible start to life and equal opportunities to learn. Strands of work include developing a toolkit to further support schools to embed inclusive SEND support in mainstream settings, transitioning from our Funding For Inclusion programme, and increasing the timeliness of education, health and care statutory assessments. More information is available here: SEND and Inclusion Transformation | Leeds Local Offer
The impact of oracy in maths teaching has been shared at EAL and subject network meetings and conferences. To enhance resource accessibility for parents, carers, and communities translated educational resources have been shared with schools and families. Leeds for Learning has been updated with relevant information and instructional videos have been created for vulnerable new to English families.
Through the Arooj Project, CPD and school network meeting the focus on multilingual resources and data-driven writing programmes has catered to diverse learning needs, fostering positive attitudes towards reading and writing. Schools have been equipped with effective strategies and resources to support reading and writing development. Conference workshops and CPD offers have provided teachers with the skills to address barriers in writing and promote translanguaging in the classroom. The celebration of writing event generated a sense of belonging and pride among pupils from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
During the autumn term 2024, 11 parental sessions were held with Roma families with a focus on engaging parents in children’s learning at home at The Compton Centre. 47 parents and children (including some non-Roma families from the area) attended the sessions. The aim of the session was to gain an understanding of the Roma families, build a link to the community and collect relevant information about Roma students’ learning. Most of the Roma parents who attended the sessions expressed they find it challenging and difficult to help their child(ren) with learning at home due to limited English. Power point slides “Helping Your Child(ren) to Learn at Home” have been translated into Romanian and Roma languages. The information gathered as part of the deep-dive into the community is to be used to develop a specific education strategy for the Roma community.
Schools have benefited from the creation of resource provision guides and the sharing of EAL Early Years summary guides, which have enhanced their ability to support early years learning environments. These actions have influenced school structures and practices, ensuring that early years education is inclusive and responsive to multi-lingual and multi-ethnic learners.
The school training sessions have been instrumental in raising awareness of systemic and individual biases that impact on schooling, classroom practice, teaching and learning and outcomes for children and staff. It has generated much discussion and reflection towards the development of culturally inclusive schools and settings. This has led to changes in the curriculum, teaching and learning and the school environment. The reach and positive feedback for the CCQM framework and training continues to grow such that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales are now engaged with the CCQM training.
The Diversity Role Models packs are helping schools deliver inclusive, age-appropriate lessons that celebrate difference. Teachers are using the Diversity Role Models Upstander Animation Series to reinforce key messages from Diversity Role Model workshops or as standalone tools to promote kindness, inclusion and allyship.
The Health and Wellbeing Services partnered with Getaway Girls to share and gather feedback on their new Changemakers resource at the Primary PSHE Subject Leader event. Staff welcomed the resource and saw its potential for use in staff meetings or with older pupils (Year 5+). A bitesize session is also being delivered to Early Help staff to share it more widely on 16 May 2025.
Education Adviser support from the Virtual School has given the YJS a better understanding of the learning needs of their cohort and how they embed the graduated approach in assessing, planning for and meeting needs. This has been further enhanced by a developing an equivalent Personal Education Plan for children supported within Tier 3 of the YJS, further increasing the focus on learning and education, helping reduce risk and build aspiration. The service supports the YJS Education Officers with half termly consultations for all Virtual School cohorts.
In addition, the continuing success and impact of the Leeds City College Post-16 Progression Champion, funded by the Virtual School, is securing impressive retention rates as young people transition into their post-16 phase of learning.
Having a specific focus on SEND has provided space and time for subject leaders to talk about and share common challenges. Aligning the toolkit with specific leadership strategies has provided subject leaders with the tools to make changes in their department. The EDI work has provoked insightful conversations and raised awareness of how EDI presents in different subject areas such as access to out of school sports opportunities and holidays abroad.
More information about the progress of the SEND Transformation Programme is provided here SEND and Inclusion Transformation | Leeds Local Offer, however in summary:
From April 2025, some elements of the Learning Improvement service Closing the Gap team will be delivered on a traded basis, included scheduled courses for school staff on improving attainment for targeted pupil groups.
Work continues to embed the principle aims of the Cultural Cohesion Strategy and Cultural Cohesion Quality Mark.
Over 2025-26 include the Virtual School will carry on doing work to:
The LLP is developed in partnership with the Strategic Board, in response to school needs. Schools are focused on raising the outcomes of their most vulnerable pupils (the partnership knows this as it has also asked school leaders to share their priorities through the senior leader briefings), many of whom have a protected characteristic. Therefore developing this area will be the focus of the partnership’s work for 2025/26.
We are in conversations with Gipsil around running a bitesize session for schools on the work they are doing with schools and colleges around black boys. and mental health.
The SEND transformation programme continues at pace, with an extension to the partnership contract with Liquid Personnel to maintain the additional Educational Psychology and plan writing capacity in place since September 2024.
Ensure everyone can benefit from an age friendly city where people age well, regardless of where they live or their protected characteristics, enabling older people to be valued, feel respected and appreciated, and are seen as assets.
Influence across the council and wider partners to ensure age, as a protected characteristic, is considered in strategic priorities and plans.
Recognise the barriers faced by older people who are, or are at risk of, being vulnerable, marginalised or disadvantaged, and put interventions in place to remove or reduce these barriers.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
1. Working with Commissioners/services and the Friendly Communities team (Leeds Older People’s Forum) to develop and implement age friendly principles to ensure services are accessible and inclusive of older people and those with protected characteristics by:
2. Working with partners to ensure a preventative approach is taken in later life to address individual risk factors as well as the wider determinants focusing on those who are more likely to experience inequality to ensure they age well through:
Examples to demonstrate the impact of the work include:
Develop a greater understanding of the needs and barriers faced by older people through:
Influence across the council and wider partners to ensure age, as a protected characteristic, is considered in strategic priorities and plans through:
Put interventions in place to remove or reduce barriers faced by older people through:
Working with partners to ensure a preventative approach is taken in later life to address individual risk factors as well as the wider determinants with a focus on those who are more likely to experience inequality to ensure they age well:
To reduce the negative impact on quality of life and wellbeing experienced by carers by due to their caring role by making Leeds a Carer Friendly City, which recognises and values the contribution of carers and support of carers and puts them at the heart of decision making.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
The Leeds Carers Partnership is a well-attended stakeholder group who meet on a quarterly basis to develop and improve services that support carers (including for example around HomeFirst). This group is reviewing and refreshing the existing Leeds Carers Partnership Strategy and is planning further co-production work with carers to ensure the new strategic approaches make a positive impact on carers lives and make Leeds a carer friendly city. The partnership (with Carers Leeds) has also influenced key plans (including Leeds Health and Wellbeing Strategy, the Healthy Leeds Plan) to ensure carers are treated as a priority across the whole city.
There is a network of Carer Champions across the ASC (Adult Social Care) operational teams to help raise awareness of unpaid carers and create a link with Carers Leeds to enable the early identification of carers and the prompt provision of information and advice. The Carer Champions come together regularly with Carers Leeds to build knowledge and connections across the workforce.
ASC carer assessments are undertaken by a small dedicated unpaid carers team and the wider ASC teams, and there has been an increase in the number of being completed with positive outcomes for carers. ASC are currently developing a self-assessment/referral form with carers to streamline the process. Packages of care for carers include help with cleaning, gardening and wellbeing, and the dedicated team receives positive feedback around how small changes make a big difference. The council provides around 300 carers with a direct payment to support them around their caring role
To improve the quality of the ASC support for unpaid carers, the council has undertaken quality assurance audits on several carers assessments/reviews (across ethnicity groups, ages and geographical areas). This exercise showed evidence of high-quality person-centered conversations including the provision of good quality information and advice, as well as connecting people into their communities. To build and strengthen these findings, there is an on-going awareness raising exercise around carers including the available guidance document and the need for early finance conversations to support carers.
To reach and support carers from ethnically diverse communities, Carers Leeds has built strong relationships with local community organisations (including Hamara, Touchstone and ABA Leeds). Their activities include roadshows and events in community venues and drop ins at Reginald Centre. Carers Leeds are also building relationships with the network of grassroot organisations who work with LGBTQ+ communities to extend their reach to LGBTQ+ carers.
Working with the other West Yorkshire authorities, the council has secured funding from Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) for several innovation projects to support unpaid carers.
This funding has been used for an enhanced digital resource through the Carers UK website platform, where carers can access practical resources, wellbeing support and financial advice, along with the associated social media campaigns to promote it.
There is now a funded digital carer support worker based within Carers Leeds to help improve their digital offer, online service provision and social media outreach to reach and engage with a wider range of carers in Leeds. The funding will also enable improvements to the Carers Leeds website including on-line referrals, bookings, training and web-chat functions.
In addition, the council continues to develop the Carers Corner on the Leeds Directory website to provide an alternative way for carers to access the information and advice that they need.
The council has developed new contractual arrangements for the provision of planned short breaks from caring, which enable greater choice and flexibility for the cared-for person and their carer, and also provides continuity of care for the cared-for person. This service could be a paid care worker sitting with cared-for person within their own home or accompanying them on a short outing.
As part of the ARF projects, there is a plan to develop a new carer break offer, which connects unpaid carers to hospitality, tourism, and leisure businesses who are willing to donate a break opportunity free of charge. A joint procurement has been undertaken with the five West Yorkshire carers centres, led by Carers Leeds, putting forward a successful consortium bid to deliver this service. Carers Leeds are currently mobilising this service.
The council continues to commission Carers Leeds to provide an information, advice and support service for unpaid carers in Leeds. The organisation is now reaching over 10,000 carers a year through offering a choice of contact methods and settings (including an advice line, integrated digital offer, carer support workers, citywide and local community events and newsletters). They have an active pool of volunteers and are working with community representatives to engage more carers, including those who are socially isolated. Their employers forum supports businesses to become carer friendly and helps them to reach working carers. Carers Leeds conduct an annual carers survey, and the findings provide a feedback mechanism from carers across the city. The new State of Caring in Leeds report is planned in June 2025.
The Council and Carers Leeds work with the Neighbourhood Networks and other third sector organisations who support diverse communities in Leeds to enhance their provision and support around carers, including those from ethnically diverse carers. This included a themed engagement session in Summer 2024, which helped to strengthen relationships and connections. Carers Leeds are active members of the Dementia Partnership to help build partnerships and collaborations around carers who support people with dementia.
In terms of the council’s employees (9% of our staff have declared that they are carers) and to build an evidence portfolio for a future accreditation, the council has:
The personal social services survey of adult carers takes place every 2 years, with the next survey due to take place in Leeds in October 2025 and therefore Adults and Health will be able to provide an update for the key performance indictors in the next report (25/26).
The actions and activities outlined in Section 2a will improve the outcome “Unpaid carers in Leeds will be recognised, valued, and supported” by:
The key actions planned include:
Support protected characteristics and priority demographics to become or remain physically active, to decrease health inequalities across the city.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Active Leeds (AL), have made great strides in 2024-25 in progressing the equality improvement priority to support protected characteristics and priority demographics to become or remain physically active and to reduce health inequalities. The commitment to improving inclusion and diversity is reflected in the new service Vision, Mission and strategic approach, developed by all staff and launched in September 2024:
Vision: ‘To be the best city to be active in.’
Mission: ‘We believe in making a difference every day. Working with people and their communities so they are at the heart of all we do. We want everyone to move more in a way that works for them.’ A focus on putting people first; building a sustainable service for the future and creating places and spaces to be active, all with equality and diversity as a golden thread running through all work.
Internally an EDCI working group was established to lead on the development of equality-related areas, with an equality priorities plan. Within this several cross service representative sub-groups have been established-focusing on LGBT+ and inclusive recruitment/retention. Priority demographics and equality characteristics have been a focus of and supported throughout every strand of the Active Leeds service: through outreach work of the development team in priority communities; through the sixteen leisure centre venues and programmes managed by the operations team and through marketing, promotion, supporting 34,000 members and digital inclusion via the business team.
Sport England Active Lives survey states the Inactive rate for Leeds has fallen from 24.3% in Nov 2021 to Nov 2022, to 23.9%, Nov 2022 to Nov 2023. This means less that 160k of the adult population are inactive and over 443k are now classed as very active (which is also up by 0.8% to 66.4%). This is better than the national (25.7%), regional (27.7%) and core cities (25%) averages.
Active Leeds deliver complex health programmes for older people such as strength and balance falls prevention, with 1,598 referrals since April 2022. The proven longitudinal benefits include: reduced frailty levels and GP appointments; reduction in A&E attendances and inpatient admission for falls, using fewer bed days for admissions. Health check events, physical activity tasters and continuation in suitable sessions in leisure centres, home exercise programmes, and the Leeds Encouraging Activity in People Project all support people in priority localities, with physical activity navigation, signposting, support and low membership costs. Young people at Dixons Unity have co-produced a project discussing barriers in physical activity and P.E., engaging more young people in their local community, which led to increased confidence, sense of belonging, in the school and local community. Nanu Sport in Harehills has been supported with a community youth project to purchase more equipment to expand their offer and provide sports kit through the KEEP partnership.
Active Leeds host several disability sports clubs at leisure centre sites such as wheelchair basketball at Morley Leisure Centre, wheelchair racing at the John Charles Centre for Sport and the latter venue delivers weekly learning disability and wheelchair tennis programmes and national tournaments. All disability sport sessions delivered across the city are populated in the “Leeds Inclusive Sport programme” which Active Leeds co-ordinates and distributes. Active Leeds sits on the West Yorkshire Disability Sport Network and Activity Alliance Yorkshire regional forum, and the new Disability Inclusive Leeds steering group. Active Leeds co-ordinate the city-wide Leeds Cycling partners group, which brings together all disability/inclusive cycling providers and has had a specific focus on this area. The service has a partnership with British Cycling and part-funds an Inclusive Cycling Developer that sits within the Active Leeds development team. Through our partnership with British Triathlon the service supported the Yorkshire Ability Triathlon annual event at Leeds Beckett University, a swim bike and run event for disabled young people from across the region.
A comprehensive programme of disability swim hubs and additional needs swimming lessons are now established in 9 leisure centres across the city, with 25 sessions (133 spaces), with smaller class sizes allowing greater levels of support. In September 2024 the service held an STA Award in Aquatic Teaching/ Disability Swimming with 10 members of staff completing. Several disabled children swim at Armley who compete in the Special Olympics through Leeds Stars.
The LeedsCard 60 Extra or a LeedsCard Extra gives disabled users a gym, swim and class membership 12 month contract price on a flexible membership plan. Low sensory gym sessions based at Pudsey Leisure Centre also expanded to the John Charles Centre for Sport, Armley and Middleton leisure centres. We plan to expand the sessions into more leisure centres in 2025. Eight leisure centres house adult social care bases: Rothwell, Garforth, Middleton, Pudsey, Holt Park, Kirkstall, Aireborough and Scott Hall. The “Sporting Memories” programme was launched at Holt Park Active providing a safe space for physical activity and reminiscence to take place amongst older adults living with health conditions such as dementia. Active Leeds for Health also deliver partnership programmes for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, and ‘Shape up 4 Surgery’ cancer prehabilitation.
The Active Through Football Programme offers coaching opportunities on a weekly basis to the Angels of Freedom group in Kirkstall. Active Leeds supported the Leeds Queer Sports Festival in October 2024, highlighting LGBT+ inclusive sport and leisure opportunities. Active Leeds is a key component contributing to the LGBT+ Inclusive Leeds strategy 2023-28, with a new internal sub-group established to focus on this work.
Active Leeds secured funding through the Integrated Care Board (ICB), to provide Yoga during and post pregnancy for women with a high risk of gestational diabetes across several settings. To date we have over 458 women signed up to the initiative. Participants are referred via their midwifes and live within the 1-10% areas of the city where the health inequalities are the highest and where Gestational Diabetes is the most prevalent.
Menopause awareness and support through physical activity has been delivered to women within Ripon House, a hostel for women who have served long term prison sentences. Get Set Leeds Local and the Active Through Football Project have worked in collaboration to deliver inclusive football tournaments for women and participants who identified as women or non-binary. Active Leeds delivered “Ask for Angela” awareness workshops to staff across all leisure centres in early 2025; hosted an event for the fitness industry focusing on the barriers that women and girls face in sport and physical activity; and delivered a series of LCC cross-service menopause awareness workshops.
Working with our partners at British Triathlon, leisure centres have implemented women’s only swimming sessions; a project was established to remove the barrier of access to period products in sites; community women’s only self defence courses have been established in Hunslet and Riverside; and a new women's group was established in the inner south area, providing insight into different cultural perceptions of their journey through menopause. Active Leeds created a health and wellbeing plan, offering a range of support packages to staff. Linked to this was the launch of the “Manbassadors” programme, with 10 volunteers trained up who provide a listening and signposting service to support male colleagues around health and wellbeing, organising male-friendly activities and events that bring men together to talk, aiming to reduce the stigma around men's health and the 5 biggest killers of men.
Working in partnership with Chapeltown Youth Development Centre, Active Leeds created a scholarship programme to provide young black people with the opportunity to access the gym and swimming sessions during off-peak times. Active Leeds are a key member of the Yorkshire and Humber Anti-Racism in Sport group and have pledged support for the campaign to help stop racism in sport and physical activity. This culminated in Active Leeds co-hosting and planning the “Time for Action” conference with Yorkshire Sport Foundation. Over 100 key attendees spent the day listening to guest speakers about their experiences of racism in sport and agreeing on areas where problems need addressing. Active Leeds hosted online forums each day during Race equality matters week, facilitating discussion amongst all staff. The service has been supporting Come Outside community run group who set up in their area due to lack of representation at Park Run events. Active Leeds staff have co-organised and hosted a cross-service event to celebrate Black History Month, “Reclaiming the narrative”, in the style of a speaking library with four guest speakers all LCC employees sharing their lived experiences.
Colleagues recently met with the Muslim Sports Foundation about collaborative working opportunities between themselves and Active Leeds, GSLL and Walk it Ride it projects supported HealthyHERHills group based at Bilal Mosque, offering physical activity sessions and connecting with local opportunities, supporting the development of a community gym by donating equipment, painting and cleaning and developing a safe welcoming space. Fearnville Leisure Centre have partnered with Muslim Friendly Employers to create a more inclusive and supportive workplace, introducing a quiet space with prayer mats for our employees and invited Humayun from Muslim Friendly Employers to deliver a Ramadan guide to our entire team. An event was held in early February 2025 to mark World Hijab day at the centre. Community chest funding supported a new resident led community group in Armley which is based at the Sikh Gurdwara which offers active opportunities for its community.
Carers continue to access free entry to any Active Leeds leisure centre/sessions, when supporting a disabled person. There are 811 on the Foster 4 Leeds/cared for or carer health and fitness free membership subscription. Active Leeds offer free swimming lessons for children in care, with 157 currently on this membership (this has increased from 116 in September 2022). The Get Set Leeds local project supported GIPSIL with their youth boxing group who work with looked after children in the Harehills area.
Active Leeds has been linking with Leeds City of Sanctuary and St Monica's Housing to support groups of people seeking asylum at hotels in Leeds with free physical activity opportunities. Hotel residents seeking asylum have been able to gain free access to three local Active Leeds leisure centres and were also supported with kit/sports clothing, additional activities, led walks, runs and cycle training. Re-establish have been supported with a grant to develop a new youth space in Holbeck.
Active Leeds strategically chaired the city-wide partnership for sharing, collecting and distributing over 10,000 items of sports kit, clothing and equipment to give out to people who desperately need it. This partnership won an international “Sports Positive” award in October 2024. Fred Perry Tennis Trust and Active Leeds delivered four free tennis programmes for children and adults, at Armley Park. 49.76% of court bookings on the Armley Park weekly free tennis lessons were made by those living in IMD 1-3. Financial support in the shape of sports equipment grants have been given to local sports clubs and individual athletes, with priority given to those supporting protected characteristics and priority demographics; since August 2020, £52,750 has been distributed to 270 clubs and 25 individuals through this scheme.
Free swimming lessons were delivered to children entitled to free school meals through the healthy holidays programme. Online sign-ups were introduced for Active Leeds swimming lessons for the first time increasing enrolment by nearly 14k. Get Set Leeds Local supports locality-based approach focusing work in areas within the top 1% most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Focusing on 4 of our priority localities in Leeds; Seacroft, New Wortley, Beeston and Holbeck. In addition to this, over the next 2 years, GSLL Project Team will begin to embed its approach within the Easterly Grove, St Wilfred's priority locality within the Gipton and Harehills ward.
A large project took place to review and revamp the Active Leeds website ensuring content was more accessible for all, including the removal of PDFs, images with text, and alteration of colours. The Active Leeds website is now more compliant with new accessibility legislation, evidenced in the increased online bookings onto disability swimming lessons.
Active Leeds has set out an EDCI Priorities Plan for 2025-26, including the roll out of the first diversity and inclusion in the workplace survey for all staff. Active Leeds will link with Leeds Beckett University on a research project to identify better ways of working, relating to recruitment and retainment of an inclusive and ethnically diverse workforce, one that represents the communities we serve, and findings will steer the work of the new inclusive recruitment/retention sub-group. The guidance document on “Accessing Active Leeds Sport facilities by transgender and non-binary people” will be reviewed and amended considering the recent national legal developments. The service plans to implement the “Accessercise” app across leisure centre gyms, the first app ever created to supporting people with impairments in this setting. Consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and demographics will continue on the proposed new Fearnville wellbeing centre.
The levels of inactivity in Leeds remain highest in the most deprived areas of the city and whilst there is an improvement in people moving from inactive to active this shift has been greater in the least deprived areas (1.8% change) compared with most deprived (0.7% change). This indicates there is a need to focus work with these communities to better understand the barriers to physical activity including environmental factors and identify the preferred type of activity.
Active Leeds will work with Partners and the system to champion Physical Activity and moving more by embedding the service direction of travel from being a traditional leisure service to an active and wellbeing service, putting health inequalities at the heart of everything we do and working together to improve spaces (environment) and places, to enable more people to move more everyday as part of their lives.
Through Leeds Culture Strategy, engage Leeds communities to create and enable new opportunities to promote increased engagement with culture by Leeds diverse communities through Leeds 2023 and the council’s existing cultural and grants programmes.
Create and enable new opportunities to increase engagement with culture by Leeds’ diverse communities through Leeds Culture Strategy, Leeds 2023 and the council’s existing cultural and grants programmes.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Supporting businesses and residents to improve skills, helping people into work and into better jobs.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
The Employment and Skills service has delivered or partnered in a number of targeted programmes, initiatives and events which progress the equality improvement priority:
| Measure | Total | Disability total | Disability % | Mental Health as % disability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| People accessing services | 12,592 (13,513) | 1,819 (1,748) | 14% (13%) | 49% (49%) |
| People into work | 2,627 (3.094) | 233 (234) | 9% (8%) | 47% (51%) |
| People with improved skills | 4,049 (4,300) | 865 (845) | 21% (20%) | 54% (54%) |
During the period:
Deliver well-designed transport infrastructure, streets and public realm that is inclusive, people focused and accessible to all.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Last year’s report detailed ‘what we still need to do’ as:
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training was launched for all managers and supervisors across the council. Let’s Talk Equality, Diversity and Inclusion was the new EDI online training package for all staff to equip everyone with the skills, tools and confidence to embed the values. It also supported to foster inclusive workplace cultures by challenging discrimination, tackling inappropriate behaviour, working in diverse teams and removing barriers so we can all perform to our best. Everyone was asked to take part in the training as the training was a vital way of supporting us all to embed and live our values and this is ongoing training.
Information has recently been circulated outlining training resources for all staff to be undertaken.
Understanding unconscious bias Part 1 (csod.com)
Understanding unconscious bias Part 2 (csod.com)
ACTION: ESMT Managers to provide team refresh on importance of calling out inappropriate behaviours in the workplace and check team compliance with training. Remember every member of staff deserves to be able to bring their whole self to work. Inappropriate Behaviours
Suggestions:
Equality in the Workplace for All (csod.com)
Disability etiquette - micro-course (csod.com)
Tackling gender bias (csod.com)
Creating an environment based on respect (csod.com)
ACTION: Ensure all team members have training allocated in PAL / completed and ensure discussions happen in team meetings to embed expected behaviours.
Since January 2023, H&T Comms Team completed actions against a new EDI initiative, ‘Connecting Leeds for All’. CLFA identified existing and perceived barriers preventing different people across Leeds from seeing our communications, feeling engaged and taking part in consultations.
In April 2024 we received notification that our entry for Enhancing EDI through ‘Connecting Leeds for All' (CLFA) had made the shortlist for the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation award category of Equality Diversity and Inclusion. This was a great achievement and the team has been highly commended for ‘Treating People Fairly’ internally - demonstrating an essential Leeds City Council value.
CLFA has improved consultation response rates from under-represented demographics.
We created 3 priority objectives and demonstrated progress against them by January 2024:
The Connecting Leeds Team:
By changing how we work, prioritising removing accessibility barriers, under-represented people can understand projects from the start, and ‘Have their say’ so that solutions are done with them not to them. Going the extra mile in 2022/23 has paid off and has set a raised benchmark in 2024 for accessibility, diversity and inclusion.
Connecting Leeds for All has been successful:
The social value of H&T schemes continues to be communicated in several ways, from press articles about how an older people’s home celebrated the refurbishment of their access road, social media content showcasing female workers in the industry and tree planting involving diverse school children. In terms of trees that are removed the social value is considered to see how this can be recycled locally within the scheme.
The Fink Hill scheme completed in 2024 and our construction partner Colas produced a book for school pupils to help give insight into the world of civil engineering which could help inspire girls to study STEM subjects (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Readers are invited to experience a female student and inspiring civil engineer by the Colas team, and Josie, one of Leeds City Council’s Civil Engineers. During this visit, she learns more about the crucial role that civil engineering plays in shaping communities and building infrastructure.
During the Harewood Bridge closure for essential maintenance in Summer 2023 the materials recycled from other Highways schemes were re-used as part of the works and around 95% of the waste generated on-site was to be re-used in future projects too (including the existing tarmac road surface!).
The Armley Gyratory project which is still in construction and is being delivered in partnership with Balfour Beatty has delivered 556 trees as part of the scheme, 9 weeks work experience for young people, 3 apprentices and 2 placement students supported by the scheme.
Actions taken:
Outcome:
Activities/actions taken:
Outcome:
Activities/actions taken:
Outcome:
PATH recruits progressing through structure and now in permanent roles and some success sponsoring external candidates (female recruit into Flood Risk Management).
Activities / actions taken:
Outcomes:
Ensuring equality is a key focus of delivering inclusive growth and building economic resilience for Leeds and everyone living and working in the city.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
The Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy 2023 - 2030: One Year On update was taken to Executive Board in December 2024, setting out progress the city has made in delivering inclusive growth since the publication of the second Inclusive Growth Strategy in September 2023.
The strategy aims to ensure that the future of our city is more inclusive, healthier and greener and that everyone living in the Leeds can have the opportunity to flourish. It forms a key pillar of the Best City Ambition, setting out how we will tackle poverty and inequality through inclusive growth.
Over the last year, we have made significant progress in delivering against the strategy and its three themes of ‘People, Place and Productivity’. This includes addressing poverty and the inequalities that different communities and people face, including poor health, a lack of skills and opportunities. Programmes and projects have set out to deliver positive impact in our places, providing the infrastructure, transport investment, housing and development that our communities need and want. Finally, activity has aimed to unlock growth at all levels, including removing the barriers that entrepreneurs face in starting a business.
Delivery examples are included below.
Over the last year, programmes and projects delivering the Inclusive Growth Strategy have had a strong focus on promoting equality and positive community impacts. For example:
Since the launch of the new strategy, work has taken place to maximise our approach and build awareness of the new strategy. This includes growing the Inclusive Growth Partnership, which is our mechanism to engage about inclusive growth with a wide range of stakeholders from across the city. The partnership has grown from 900 members in 2022 to over 1,500 members in 2025.
We hold 3 events per year to bring the partnership together, with the last event held in February 2025 which brought together key partners, stakeholders and representatives to discuss our shared vision for the city. At the event, the council’s new Chief Executive Ed Whiting talked about our progress on becoming a ‘Marmot City’, which aims to address health inequalities in Leeds. Ed emphasised the importance of joined-up services that integrate health, housing, and other essential areas. This event also featured a workshop highlighting the importance of the connections between work and health, and sharing updates on recent work starting to accelerate focus on this area. The workshop highlighted the inequalities that can often be felt by people with a disability and/or people experiencing mental ill health, exploring way that employers can offer the right support for people to remain successfully in work.
We ensure that our events are accessible and inclusive through the use of an Inclusive Events checklist which we developed as team as part of our EDI Team Plan. This helps us to consider aspects such as venue accessibility and the diversity and representation of speakers.
To ensure that work to deliver the city’s climate ambition of net zero provides opportunities for, and is communicated to, all communities, including those characteristics protected by law under the Equality Act 2010.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Summary of examples that have taken place:
In all our consultation and engagement on projects we always ensure we reach as broad a cross section of the Leeds community as possible, identifying the most appropriate method of consultation.
We have identified challenges and barriers when communicating on climate change and are working with colleagues to further improve our methods to address this.
Our service-wide equalities working group meets monthly with representatives from a variety of teams. This group provides opportunity for officers to share information on upcoming projects and schemes requesting feedback in relation to equalities, diversity and inclusion, particularly prior to consultation and communication work.
Improving the green spaces will make them accessible to all who visit during different times of the year. The increased planting of trees is beneficial to the climate and encourages all communities to make a difference.
Increases in the use of charge points installed through commercial investment, mandated through planning conditions and through delivery of council projects will continue to improve the air quality in the city for all sectors of the community especially those in areas of multiple deprivation who tend to be in close proximity to transport related sources of air pollution.
Commenced the Home Upgrade Grant (HUG) 2 scheme assisting mainly low income residents without gas central heating. 251 properties benefitted from this.
Across all the workstreams, we will look to improve our equality monitoring to ensure we better understand the distribution of grants and services to allow us to take targeted action where required to improve representation.
Continue to work with communities to communicate and engage about the benefits of the work we are doing not only for climate change, but to improve their own health and wellbeing.
Over the next few years, we will be working to identify how we can further improve our green spaces parks based on the thoughts and opinions of local people to ensure they are the best they can be. A key element is ensuring that the parks are welcoming, inclusive and accessible for everyone who wants to use them.
Continuing to identify funding and implement work to install energy efficiency, low carbon heating and renewable energy measures in low-income households that don’t currently benefit from gas central heating.
Ensure that consideration of equality and the characteristics protected by law is a key focus of our delivery of Housing services with a focus on:
Equality Improvement Priority update:
During 2024/25 the council acquired 99 homes. Of the acquired properties, 25 were specifically to support rough sleepers or homeless people through the Single Homeless Accommodation Programme funded by Homes England. Homes are made available as ‘ready to move into’ accommodation. 11 properties were to accommodate families from Afghanistan and Ukraine. 51 family homes were provided through the Council’s Buy-Back scheme and a further 12 ‘off the shelf’ new build homes were purchased from developers to align with demand in local areas.
Gascoigne House Extra Care scheme opened in October 2023 with all 60 apartments allocated by April 2024. The 12 specialist bungalows for working age adults with a physical or sensory impairment were all allocated by June 2024. In partnership with us, Home Group took handover of a 62-unit Extra Care scheme in Woodlesford, with residents moving in from September 2024. Planning has been approved for a 65-unit Scheme in Armley, with plans to be on site in March 2025. The Health and Housing Service continues to work with disabled, vulnerable, and older residents. The service spent over £17 million on adaptations and associated programmes to support residents to live safely in their own homes. The service made over 1,400 priority awards for re-housing and ensured that new homes were suitable for customer’s current and future occupation. Programmes included a fast-track housing pathway for children with life threatening asthma and secondary intervention for children with respiratory conditions to be referred by their GP for a package of items to improve the air quality within the home. Other projects included repairs to keep older people’s homes safe and weatherproofed. Initiatives also included up-grading heating systems and making improvements to insulation in the homes of disabled, vulnerable, and elderly customers.
In 2024/25 work was completed to 1,520 homes. This included: 3 tower blocks that benefitted from external wall insulation (EWI) which were also connected to Leeds Pipes; 4 tower blocks that benefitted from EWI only; 6 tower blocks that had communal Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) installed; and a further 2 that had communal Ground Source Heat Pumps installed to provide low carbon heating. Over 50 properties were completed through a recently procured cavity and loft insulation scheme.
We offer support to people who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, and provide general housing advice for anyone experiencing an issue. There is a bespoke offer in place for young people, victims and survivors of domestic abuse, refugees, customers leaving hospital or prison, rough sleepers, Armed Forces veterans, and members of the LGBT+ community. Projects during the year have included:
Over 88 individuals and families in housing need have been provided with secure accommodation. The additional properties made available through the various homeless programmes, alongside the dedicated support on offer, has resulted in reduced rough sleeping and the associated issues such as begging and substance misuse.
Community-based activities are strong and running at all Extra Care schemes, including craft clubs run by volunteers; a disabled adults group coming regularly for lunch; pen pals and a reading scheme with a primary school. Gascoigne House Extra Care was awarded the LABC National Winner of the Best Purpose Built Accommodation citing its communal facilities and gardens as one of the reasons. The Health and Housing service installed 840 adaptations via Disabled Facility Grants in private sector homes and 966 adaptations into Council properties. Alongside the provision of adaptations, there has been significant investment in several projects to ‘improve housing to improve health equity’. During 2024/25 the service worked with the Institute of Health Equity and Public Health to realise the city’s ambition to become a Marmot City – a ‘Fairer, Healthier Leeds’.
Air and Ground Source Heat Pumps use less energy to produce the same amount of heat as electric storage heaters, reducing fuel bills by 30% on average against last year’s kWh levels. Homes that have benefitted from external wall insulation will see a reduction in heat loss, and an increase in thermal comfort. Residents will see a reduction in energy consumption, and therefore energy bills, helping reduce fuel poverty and lessen the pressure on household budgets.
During 2024/25 we accepted over 5,580 duties to prevent or relieve homelessness, with 55% owed a 'prevention duty' (higher than the national average of 41%). 76% of cases threatened with homelessness had a positive prevention outcome, either securing existing or alternative accommodation for at least 6 months (national average is 52%). For customers at risk of homelessness, we supported over 240 moves into private or housing association accommodation; 803 victims of domestic abuse received homelessness duties, with 334 referred to the Sanctuary Scheme; 71 prison leavers were supported into accommodation through the ex-offender scheme; 140 refugee households were assisted into positive accommodation outcomes. Leeds is above the national average in capturing sexuality and gender identity data. The service supports the LGBT+ Social and Wellbeing Café, providing housing advice, particularly to LGBT+ asylum seekers. Although the service cannot influence immigration decision speeds, it prepares individuals for next steps post-decision. A ‘task and finish’ group has been set up with migration colleagues to address the needs of those with 'No recourse to public funds'.
We will continue to increase the number of affordable homes available across all sectors each year.
Start on site for one Extra Care scheme and develop plans for a further scheme by end of 2026. Market the communal facilities at Extra Care schemes as being a pivotal part of the ‘community’. Following recommendations from the Institute of Health Equity and Public Health, the Council is formulating an action plan with partners bringing the principals of Marmot to tackle health inequality in the city and to bring the aims of the Council’s ‘Health and Well-being Strategy’ to the forefront of activity across Leeds.
Deliver programmes of work linked to recently awarded government funded grant of £25 million 50/50% split with LCC capital programme. This funding is to help deliver a range of energy efficiency measures between 2025-2028 to 1,500 low rise properties.
Continue to increase temporary accommodation provision that meets the need of people who require it. Organise training with Stonewall to support staff in asking equality questions and supporting the LGBT+ community. Work with AKT and Out 2 18 (two key services for the youth LGBT+ community).
Improve equality outcomes across Safer Stronger priorities and programmes of work. Being responsive to local needs, to create thriving, resilient communities, promoting respect and tackling the causes of poverty. Key actions:
Equality Improvement Priority update:
The Locality Working model, initiated in 2017, aims to address poverty and inequality in Leeds by focusing on the city's most disadvantaged areas. The model has expanded its reach to cover the 12 most deprived neighbourhoods and the 6 Priority Wards, which are the most deprived according to the 2019 IMD data. Key initiatives include the development of Priority Ward Partnership Plans, the use of the Social Progress Index (SPI) to measure impact, and the allocation of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to support community capacity and social fabric. The model emphasizes strong local partnerships and cultural change through workforce development.
Community engagement is a cornerstone of this approach, with projects like the Youth Summits and the Listening Project collecting resident feedback to improve services. The Leeds Community Anchor Network received funding to enhance community engagement in the six priority wards, leading to various local projects. Grassroots activities, such as the Umoja Leeds football club, also play a significant role in supporting young people and families, addressing issues like gang involvement and knife crime.
The service delivers strategies, initiatives and programmes to address poverty by increasing access to free, independent and impartial advice, affordable financial services and improving financial wellbeing. The work which is evidence based and developed and delivered in partnership covers poverty, financial inclusion, food insecurity, cost of living, and addressing gambling harms. Over the last 12 months the main areas of work have been the programme management of Household Support Fund and Healthy Holidays, supporting Leeds Advice Contract, Leeds Credit Union and School Uniform Exchange and Winter Coat Appeal. Developing the Leeds Money Information Centre website and associated resources (booklets, leaflets, flyers and posters). Alongside this, information and advice sessions around money, benefits, and wider support are delivered to a wide range of services and organisations in Leeds.
A new Hate Crime Strategy for 2025–2028 is being developed, building on the previous strategy by Safer Leeds. The process began with community engagement during Hate Crime Awareness Week in October 2024, followed by formal consultations with partner organisations. Over 200 people participated, ensuring the strategy reflects both data and lived experiences. The first draft, incorporating these insights, is in its final stages of refinement with partners. The final draft will be submitted for approval in Summer 2025. Implementation will be overseen by the Hate Crime Strategic Board, supported by a multi-agency action plan, with progress monitored quarterly by the Equality and Hate Crime Team and West Yorkshire Police, contributing to the city's Community Safety Partnership goals.
The Domestic Violence and Abuse Voices Project has expanded again this year, and staff have been recruited to ensure the voices of children and the LGBT+ community are being heard and their experiences and views influence decision-making. In this regard we are having a city-wide OBA event to look at improving DVA outcomes for children and young people. We have also had agenda items at the DALP regarding the experience of minority groups accessing support services around DVA. This work is in addition to the existing Women’s Victim-Survivor Forum. Workforce development continues to be delivered which recognises experiences people of different protected characteristics may have.
Providing sanctuary to people fleeing war and persecution and supporting Leeds in its vision of being a welcoming and compassionate city. The migration and resettlement agenda continues to have a considerable focus in responding to global emergencies that have impacted the city at a local level. People fleeing the war in Ukraine continue to arrive under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. Afghan refugees continue to arrive in Leeds, and we have set up responses to ensure access to services, safeguarding, strengthen partnerships and build capacity to support integration.
Umoja Leeds, a Swahili-based community group in Burmantofts and Richmond Hill, has made a significant impact by establishing the Ebor Gardens Juniors football club. Initially formed to address the lack of organized football in the area, the club now boasts 8 teams, runs training sessions twice a week, and has over 200 young people registered. Supported by mentoring from the Chapeltown Youth Development Centre and training from the FA, the club not only promotes physical activity but also fosters community cohesion and helps steer young people away from gangs and knife crime. The club's activities provide new opportunities for youth to engage in sports and build a shared identity, contributing positively to both their health and social well-being.
Leeds City Council was allocated £14.2 million (April 2024-March 2025) via the Department for Work and Pension’s Household Support Fund rounds 5 and 6, approximately 220,000 households across Leeds received support with food, fuel and essential items across these two rounds of funding. Leeds has received £3,414,390 from the Department for Education for Healthy Holidays in 2025. A new Healthy Holidays booking system was implemented in 2024 to ensure compliance with Department for Education guidance. Over 7,800 children are now signed up and approved on the system. Training Sessions with a variety of Leeds City Council teams, boards and partners have led to increased knowledge and understanding of Financial Inclusion related issues across staff, volunteers, services and elected members in the city.
Work on misogyny and anti-discrimination is being prioritised. A dedicated working group under the Violence Against Women and Girls Board addresses misogyny, focusing on online hate, legal frameworks, and local policies. Key learnings from an awareness session at the Equality Half-Day Away event will inform future actions. An anti-discrimination campaign, set to launch in June 2025, aims to raise awareness through digital and physical materials in city centre areas. In response to rising antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice, the council has adopted formal definitions and established working groups to develop action plans and community engagement strategies. Efforts include creating awareness months and weeks and expanding the working group to address both antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice, fostering shared learning and coordination across affected communities.
The Leeds Domestic Violence and Abuse Strategy 2023-2028 continues to guide our priorities to ensure that services continue to improve how they meet the needs of people such as younger and older people, those with physical or mental health issues, learning disabilities or neurodiversity, LGBT+ individuals, people from culturally diverse communities, faith groups, those for whom English is not their first language, those with insecure immigration status, those living with complex needs or experiences such as sex workers, drug or alcohol users or victims of domestic servitude.
Ethnically diverse victims-survivors of domestic violence and abuse regularly attend the Domestic Abuse Local Partnership Board (DALP) and through the victim-survivor Voices Project those with lived experience have had opportunities to speak directly to senior police officers to inform practice. In the last 12 months 2162 training places have been delivered to practitioners across Leeds, upskilling the workforce to recognise and respond to domestic violence and abuse.
Leeds City Council has implemented various initiatives to improve access to services, change attitudes and behaviours, increase awareness and understanding, strengthen resilience, and build capacity. Through partnership working and lived experiences, processes have been developed to enhance service delivery. Training sessions on migration, co-delivered with Migration Yorkshire, have increased staff knowledge about migrant terms and the city's migration strategy. The council has also developed a coordinated approach to assist individuals with no recourse to public funds. Engagement with community groups has raised awareness of long-term health conditions, with successful funding bids supporting migrant networks and third sector organizations in delivering activities to asylum seekers and refugees. The Intercultural Cities Network programme has heightened awareness of the council's approach to equality, diversity, and interaction, influencing future cohesion efforts.
The Community Committee currently employs various engagement methods, including face-to-face and online meetings, social media, local engagement plans, and email distribution lists. The proposed review aims to identify the most effective channels and platforms for inclusive engagement by blending in-person and digital approaches. Additionally, the review will focus on making agendas and reports more engaging and reflective of the committee's work, better demonstrating the value and impact of projects, linking them with Priority Ward Partnership Plans, and enhancing their visual appeal to encourage readership.
Despite the strong, established supportive infrastructure in Leeds, actions undertaken have not been enough to prevent increasing numbers of households falling into poverty. The continuation of insecure, short-term funding and timescales is also a barrier to the sustainability and planning of supportive measures. Key workstreams for 2025 continue to include Financial Inclusion training and presentations; management and related training for Money Information Centre resources; delivery of Household Support Fund and Healthy Holidays as well as partnership working with a range of advice and support agencies and stakeholders in the city.
Our programme continues to run awareness-raising events, engage communities, and educate on key aspects of hate crime. We aim to bring people together, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding among diverse groups. We also focus on understanding what hate crime is and where to report it, promoting opportunities for community cohesion and teaching about equality, diversity, and inclusion.
As a sector we are focused on delivering the strategy which is focused on four main areas: 1. Awareness, prevention, and early intervention 2. Responding to risk and harm 3. People causing harm (perpetrators) and 4. Children and young people.
As Domestic Violence and Abuse can affect anybody we will work as a partnership to ensure EDI considerations remain central to our delivery of the strategy and look to continue to ensure representation that reflects the communities of Leeds across all our board, forums and feedback mechanisms. We will be bringing the areas of the strategy to the DALP that need renewed focus and discuss ways in which we can improve outcomes for all victims of DVA.
Budget impact on equality and procurement: To ensure our contract processes have a positive impact on the council’s equality and diversity aims and objectives through the money the council spends via its contracted arrangements.
Equality Improvement Priority update:
Procurement and Commercial Services (PACS) aims to promote equality and diversity in the procurement process by using the National TOMs framework to measure the social value of its awarded contracts with the goal of reflecting the demographics of the City of Leeds. The framework provides a set of themes, outcomes and measures that PACS can use to set clear social value objectives for each contract, monitor and report on social value, and encourage innovation and collaboration among suppliers. By adopting this framework, PACS can ensure that its contracts have a positive impact on the community this may include measuring the impact of a contract on different groups of people, such as those from disadvantaged backgrounds or minority groups, and assessing its contribution to broader social and environmental outcomes.
The Social Value team has been in place since June 2023 and the documentation was changed last year so that the data relating to the performance indicator/measures could be collected. As these are relatively new data captures, work is ongoing to ensure that this can be captured by our existing Social Value platform rather than manually relating to Modern Slavery and the Real Living Wage.
Good industry / working practice is best or common practice that includes standards, practices, methods and procedures conforming to the contractual obligations and all applicable law and regulatory requirements. Comprehensive and detailed service specifications are the foundation of good industry working practices and should conform to contractual obligations as well as all applicable laws and regulations. PACS provides guidance on drafting specifications that reflect equal opportunities legislation and good industry practices. For example, to consider and reflect legislation, guidance and good industry practice in respect of equal opportunities and in the preparation of Equality Plans should be set out in the service specification.
There is an ongoing requirement for suppliers to provide an Equality Plan and for Equality Impact Assessments to be completed prior to procurement commencement as part of the Contract Procedure Rules.
The Social Value platform has allowed the team to capture information relating to equality measures for reporting purposes.
Awarded contracts (completed procurements) which included the updated Equality measures are located on the Social Value platform. The council’s new Social Value partner, on PACS request, has modified the Social Value platform to enable PACS to report on the equality outcomes that will be managed by the new Social Value team. The data will be entered into the new platform for reporting purposes. The Real Living Wage and Modern Slavery reporting is also managed by the same team with appropriate management information available in the future.
The council’s Terms and Conditions and Selection Questionnaires have recently been further amended to reflect that the contractor shall comply with all relevant Equality legislation as set out in our terms and conditions (including the 2023 amendments).
PACS supported Leeds City Council’s Stonewall submission which focused on what the organisation does to ensure that our processes and systems are inclusive.
Suppliers are contractually obliged to adhere to the legislations and specific requirements as detailed in the service specification that should cover (as a minimum) the following:
The service lead is responsible for ensuring compliance with the above requirements.
An equality and diversity procurement workshop pack has been developed to run workshops on how equality and diversity specifically relates to procurement. On specific schemes, suppliers are invited to bidders’ events where we share our knowledge of equality and diversity to encourage best practice and to ensure that suppliers are aware of expectations in being an equal opportunities employer and delivering a fully diverse and inclusive service.
The Head of Procurement chairs the regional Yorkshire and Humber Ethical Procurement Group which is focused on driving best practice across procurements within the region.
In terms of specific projects, the Social Value and Procurement team has been involved within:
Work is being undertaken within the procurement team to review and simplify our documents to make it easier for SMEs/VCSE organisations to tender for contracts. This includes:
Regularly monitoring compliance of the contract terms and conditions will ensure that all parties are treated equally and fairly.
Increase reporting relating to EDI for contracts.
To seek training opportunities for contract managers via the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team on diversity and inclusion to ensure that they are aware of the issues and can identify and address any biases in the contract management process.
To ensure that pre-market engagement activity includes information relating to EDI and its importance within the council.
Encourage the inclusion of suppliers from diverse backgrounds and ensure that they have an equal opportunity to bid for contracts.
Encourage suppliers to work with supply chains to ensure that every supplier is thinking about EDI.
Actively reach out to diverse suppliers, provide information about procurement opportunities, and encourage their participation.
The Action Plan identifies 5 high level priorities against the council as an employer workstream and an update against these is provided below:
Our council values: treating people with fairness and being open, honest and trusted go to the heart of our EDI work. The 5 workforce EDI pillars act as a foundation supporting our council ambition where everyone can be their best in work, feels included, welcome and has a voice, with a representative workforce which reflects the diverse cultures of our city, where services are designed and delivered by and for people who look, feel, and think like them.
Much progress has been made in 2024/25 across the 5 themes of our EDI plan:
Get in touch with the equality team, if you have any questions about this report.
0113 378 5998
Give feedback and let us know if this page was helpful
