Staff, training, and procurement on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity
Case reference FOI2025/00432
Received 28 February 2025
Published 6 May 2025
Request
I wish to make a freedom of information request and would be grateful if you could supply the following information within 20 working days:
1) The number of roles across all components of your operations, directorates and management structures, expressed in numbers of full-time employees (FTE), that are mainly or exclusively focused on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. This information should encompass all roles based in central offices, as well as those based around the country. Roles meeting this description could include (amongst other guises) "Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer" (EDI) or "Diversity and Inclusion Project Managers". Please break down, if possible, the number of roles per component part of your operations. For all roles meeting this description, please also provide, in order of preference, either
a) the salary of these roles,
b) the pay band of these roles, or
c) the combined total salary of these roles. Please provide the information that is most in accordance with your data processing practices. Please also advise if there are any plans to hire further staff in these areas within the next 18 months, and the roles/pay bands that they are likely to occupy.
2) With the same criteria as above, please provide the number of internal training courses attended by staff which pertain to the issues encompassed by equality, diversity or inclusivity. Please include the name of the courses, the number of attendees, and the duration of the course.
3) Please, if possible, provide details of any internal EDI practices and networks, including the number of individuals who are members of such networks.
4) Please provide details of any external contractors brought in by the department to conduct training, advice, or guidance on issues relating to EDI. Where applicable this should include costs and associated manhours.
5) Please provide details of how equality, diversity and inclusivity is included in your procurement practices, the relative weight afforded to these considerations, and the current value of contracts in which EDI considerations was a part of the procurement process.
6) If applicable, any data on the number of EDI officers at projects in receipt of funding by your organisation, or available information on their EDI practices. Failing this, your guidance to organisations applying for grant funding on expected equality and diversity practices/benchmarks.
Response
1) We have 5 full time equivalent (FTE) within National Highways with a focus of EDI in their roles as follows: x 1 FTE in Operations (external Customer facing) – Pay Band 6 x 2 FTE who focus on our Supply Chain, x1 Pay Bend 5 and x1 Pay Band 6 and x 2 FTE who focus on our employees and the environments they work in, x1 Pay Band 4 and x1 Pay Band 8
Pay Band information can be found on our publication scheme here: https://nationalhighways.co.uk/about-us/your-information-rights/publicationscheme/#spend
There are no plans to hire any further FTE into EDI related roles in the next 18 months.
2) We have one e-learning module, titled 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' that employees are encouraged to complete. Dependant on individual learning styles the module takes approximately 40 minutes to complete. On average we have a rolling 75%+ completion rate for employees.
We also have a 'Licence to Recruit' module with an EDI section that is mandatory for our hiring managers. This takes approximately 30 minutes to complete and to date 638 hiring managers have completed it.
Albeit not specifically courses, we also have 71 learning pieces on our learning platform 'THRIVE' that have an EDI tag. This means that whilst EDI is not a standalone topic in all cases, the learning piece does incorporate EDI. We do not track who has read these as they are supplementary learning pieces and are not treated as e-learning modules that all employees should undertake.
3) We have 15 employee networks with a combined voluntary membership of approximately 3,500 colleagues. These are not individual numbers as some colleagues are members of more than one network.
Our networks are: Armed Forces / Access for All / Carers / Chronic Illness support / Connecting Women / Driving Futures / Early Talent/ EmbRace / Fertility Support / Neurodivergent & proud / Menopause and hormone conditions / Parents Network / Part time working / MENtalk / Rainbow Roads.
4) We haven't brought any contractors into National Highways relating to EDI.
5) Within National Highways Procurements, EDI aligns to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (UK), ensuring compliance with non-discrimination laws. This is seen in a variety of ways across our procurement documentation.
Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs), soon to be replaced with Conditions of Participation ask suppliers to provide evidence that they meet EDI policies, practices, and workforce diversity before being eligible to bid. This includes questions on whether a company meets the equality duties under the Equality act 2010, whether they comply with the anti-discrimination regulations; And whether or not fairness, inclusion and respect is embedded throughout their organisation, promoting good practice in terms of eliminating discrimination in all forms.
During Tender Evaluation, Social Value of which EDI is a key component is given a minimum weighting of 10% across our key criterion. On average procurement activity across National highways represents a spend of circa. £5bn per annum, of which 85% of that spend would include Social Value as a 10% criterion.
Upon award, a supplier is asked to provide a copy of their Fairness, Inclusion and Respect policy approved by an appropriate company Director, proof of the review periods of such policy and the effectiveness of the policy. This could include guidance to their workforce and subcontractors concerning recruitment, training and promotion.
Regular audits and reporting mechanisms ensure suppliers adhere to EDI commitments. Non-compliance may lead to penalties, contract termination, or loss of future opportunities.
6) We do not hold data on the number of EDI officers at projects in receipt of funding as there is no requirement to collate this data.
For grants, we follow the Government Functional Standard GovS 015, details of which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60f7fc0c8fa8f50c716bcd62/FinalCO_Govt_Functional_Std_GovS015_WEB.pdf
Documents
This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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