www.metoffice.gov.uk	© Crown Copyright 2021, Met Office

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Progress Report 2021-2022

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Team

[Please note this is a draft layout, the document is currently with the Design Studio]

Contents

Contents	2

Foreword	4

About the Met Office	5

Introduction	6

Legal context that applies to the Met Office	7

Our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Strategy	9

Key achievements from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022	10

Our Equality Objectives 2021-2024	11

Objective 1 – Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve	12

Objective 2 - Advancing equality of opportunity	13

Objective 3 - Increasing representation of under-represented groups at all levels	14

Objective 4 - Zero tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination	15

Our Employee Networks and Sponsored groups	16

Our networks and sponsored groups	16

Staff network Highlights	17

People Survey	20

Future Normal – our new way of working	22

We are Equality Street	24

Met Net 3 – our new intranet site	24

COP26	24

Better Together	25

Our achievements	26

Our diversity data	27

Headlines	28

What our data tell us?	28

Further work to do on our data	29

Gender Pay Gap 2021	29

The Met Office Board and our Executive Board	30

Appendix 1: ED&I Actions 2022-2023	31

Objective 1 - Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve	31

Objective 2 - Advancing equality of opportunity	31

Objective 3 - Increasing representation of under-represented groups at all levels	31

Objective 4 - Zero tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination	32

Foreword

Welcome to our first Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Mainstreaming Report. The Met Office published our first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy in January 2021 along including our four equality objectives and this report provides you with an insight into what we have been doing to put those words into action.

Our purpose is to help you make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. If we are going to do that, we need to understand who “you” is, we need to understand “how” we can keep you safe and make you thrive and “why” you make decisions to keep safe and thrive. We also need a diversity of thought to help us with this.

In a year of uncertainty and division, we as an organisation stand together committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and making the world a better place for future generations.

Tammy Lillie FCIPD, MSc, BEng, PgC	Professor Jon Petch

Chief People Officer	Chair of the ED&I Committee

About the Met Office

The Met Office is the UK’s national weather service. It provides weather and climate-related services to government departments, the public, civil aviation, shipping, industry, agriculture, commerce, and British Armed Forces.

The Met Office is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and as such our employees are all Civil Servants.

We were founded in 1854 by Vice-Admiral Fitzroy and helped create the first shipping forecast in 1859 and first public weather forecast in 1861. Our most famous forecasts in history to date allowed the D-Day landings to occur in June 1944 bringing to a close the horror of World War II.

If you fly, consume items transported from beyond your garden, use public transport (trains or buses) or utilities (electricity or water) or take account of severe weather warnings, you are likely to have benefitted from our products and services.

We employ just over 2000 employees operating from sites across the UK and abroad. Our main headquarters is located in the Southwest of England in Exeter, Devon.

We work with a range of partners small and large around the world ranging from large brands such as Microsoft and Amazon and Russell Group Universities to small and medium sized organisations and projects.

Introduction

The Met Office is fully committed to the vision, values, and ethos of the Equality Act 2010 and to fulfilling the three elements of the general equality duty as defined in the Act:

1. Elimination of unlawful discrimination, harassment, and victimisation

2. Advancing equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not

3. Fostering good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

The protected characteristics are:

Age

Disability

Gender reassignment

Pregnancy, maternity, and breastfeeding

Race

Religion and belief

Sex

Sexual orientation

Marriage/civil partnership, but only in respect of the requirement to have due regards to the need to eliminate discrimination

The Met Office’s approach goes beyond the simple compliance with legal obligations and is routed in making the lives better for the staff and communities we serve.

This report provides detail of our:

key achievements and mainstreaming progress since January 2021

progress in relation to our Equality Objectives 2021/2022 and work with our staff and those whom we serve.

Legal context that applies to the Met Office

The Equality Act 2010 applies to all staff working in England, Wales, and Scotland. Our staff in Northern Ireland are covered by separate legislation, which is similar, but equality law in Northern Ireland is not consolidated into one single act.

There is an expectation from the EHRC that where possible UK staff who are posted overseas will be treated in line with the spirit of the Equality Act 2010; noting that this may not always be possible due to local legislation and customs. This does not mean that staff will be posted to conditions that will place their protected characteristics at risk.

Mainstreaming Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is a specific requirement for public bodies in relation to implementing the Equality Duty. In simple terms, it means integrating equality into the day to day working of the organisation, considering equality as part of everything we do.

Mainstreaming the Equality Duty has a number of benefits including:

Equality becomes part of the structures, behaviours, and culture of the organisation

The Met Office knows, and can demonstrate, how in carrying out its functions, it is promoting equality

Mainstreaming equality contributes to continuous improvement and improved performance

In line with specific duty requirements and best practice, the Met Office will provide:

An annual report on our progress to make the general Equality Duty integral to what we do

A range of employment monitoring information consistent with the Civil Service employment returns

Details of the progress made in gathering and using employment monitoring information to perform the general Equality Duty.

Why equality, diversity, and inclusion matters

Equality, diversity, and inclusion as we note in our Strategy is not about legal compliance. It is about ensuring we remain an inclusive organisation with a diversity of staff and thought. We believe that when people feel accepted, included, and valued, they are more engaged, work more collaboratively with others and deliver better outcomes.

We have traditionally attracted around 10% non-UK nationals to work for us in our science profession and the ability to attract the best ideas from across the world has contributed to our award-winning success.

The diversity of thought has enabled us to be creative and develop bespoke solutions to complex real-world problems we face across the world. This has ranged from the use of novel observations from aircraft to utilising Machine Learning to make our weather forecasts more accurate.

Research by various organisations has revealed that:

Employing and engaging with people who have a range of different backgrounds and experiences increases creativity and leads to better problem-solving and decision making.

Diverse teams bring increased customer insight

Companies with diverse management teams have higher revenue

Gender diverse companies outperform their peers and can support better processing of data.

Inclusive teams also outperform their peers in team-based assessments and have improved performance.

The Met Offices aspires to be an industry leader in our behaviours and attitudes to equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Strategy

In January 2021, we launched our first Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) Strategy, committing resources to ensure change would happen.

ED&I is beginning to be embedded into many of our business-as-usual processes but there will always be more we can do. In January 2022, we refreshed our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) Strategy to reflect this and a change to one of our equality objectives.

Our ED&I governance structure

During 2021, we established our governance structures to support the delivery of our ED&I strategy and action plan.

The Met Office Board have oversight that ED&I activity is aligned to their strategic intent and meets their expectations.

The People Committee review and sign off proposed updates to the ED&I Strategy, ED&I action plan and policies.

The ED&I Committee meets monthly and has representation from all our directorates. It provides oversight on the delivery of the ED&I action plan; it is also a forum for information exchange on ED&I across the organisation and reports to People Committee.

The ED&I Working Group supports and facilitates the delivery of multi-year ED&I action-plans.

The Diversity Council is attended by staff-led networks and sponsored groups meeting to collaborate and influence best practice across the Met Office.

Our experienced ED&I team support the delivery of the ED&I Strategy and the smooth running and operating of the Diversity Council, ED&I Working Group and ED&I Committee.

Key achievements from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022

In the reporting period 2021-2022, the Met Office like many employers has been impacted by the international COVID-19 pandemic and national ‘lockdowns. Despite this challenge the organisation has:

Been awarded Investors in Diversity by the National Centre for Diversity

Seen our staff networks increase and develop

Delivered a range of Allies events to increase our staff’s knowledge and awareness of issues affecting people in minority communities

Developed and implemented an ED&I action plan to support us in delivering our equality objectives

Increased our staff declaration rates to 91% from 69% of our staff declared in March 2021 and 43% in 2020

Launched an Early Careers Strategy

Launched a Wellbeing Strategy and Wellbeing Champions

Rolled out new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training which supports changes in behaviour and approach

Used Equality, Diversity and Inclusion tools and networks to reshape how we returned to the office and how we are transforming the office environment

Created staff and recruitment diversity dashboards enabling us to monitor our staff and applicant profile

Built a People Framework through which we can encourage a greater diversity of staff and ensure our professions are inclusive

Examined the impact of COVID on our staff

Shared our ED&I journey with partners

There were 1356 external views of the ED&I Lead’s post on LinkedIn around our new ED&I Strategy.

Our Equality Objectives 2021-2024

In line with the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011, we created equality objectives. Our initial equality objectives were agreed in January 2020 following staff consultation. In 2021 as we moved ED&I into a business-as-usual approach, there was an acknowledgment that Objective 1 needed to reflect that we deliver services to a wide range of customers. We therefore changed this objective in October 2021 from: ‘Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people’ to ‘Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve’.

Our equality objectives are:

Objective 1	Objective 2	Objective 3	Objective 4
Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve.	Advancing equality of opportunity.	Increasing representation of under-represented groups at all levels.	Zero tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination

Each objective has a detailed action plan that describes what actions we will take to ensure we are making progress.

The objectives are listed on the next page. Our Action Plan for each in 2022-23 is in Appendix 1. Our action plan is fluid and adjusts to internal and external events and ensures we can focus on customer delivery and staff wellbeing. We will report on progress in 2023 and reflect any KPIs in the Action Plan.

Objective 1 – Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve

We will achieve this by:

Providing public information in the most appropriate and accessible way

Supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives and events with a co-created ED&I calendar

Encouraging our employees to share their diversity data

Having robust and sustainable staff networks and sponsored groups that we engage and collaborate with.

Collecting and analysing our recruitment data to understand the diversity of our applicants and map against national and local demographics

Ensuring that every interview panel checks with candidates if reasonable adjustments are required, prior to interviews taking place

Improving our understanding of our customers both commercially and UK communities.

Examining and acting on any insight from the annual People Survey

How will we know that we are achieving?

Our public information meets the Public Sector Accessibility Regulations 2018

Our customer communications are clear and easy to understand, meeting the needs of all our customers as assessed by improved Public Perception Survey data.

Our diversity and inclusion initiatives and events support tangible measurable changes which support our and wider Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion aims.

Staff are confident to share their diversity, knowing that it is used only to inform future work plans/legal reporting.

Survey random samples of interview candidates to demonstrate compliance with our recruitment processes.

Understanding our customers wants and needs this not only maintains and grows our business and services but also builds trust.

What did we deliver in terms of actions in 2021-2022:

Monthly reporting of protected characteristic data from staff and applicants

Supporting our staff to return to the workplace

Updating our website career pages

Developing Staff Networks guidance

Reviewing the work of our staff networks

Internal publication of Equality Impact Assessments

Increasing staff diversity declaration rates beyond our 80% target

Improving the provision of ED&I information for staff and managers on our intranet

Improving our understanding of our Unified Model partners ED&I issues Evidencing our ED&I activity to our commercial partners

Objective 2 - Advancing equality of opportunity

We will achieve it by:

Participating in equality benchmarking schemes to assess our performance but also learn from other organisations.

Rolling out a mentoring and coaching programme

Ensuring more colleagues have the tools and skills to undertake equality impact assessments when we change or introduce new policies, practices, and strategies

Utilising our brand and media channels to create awareness of issues both Civil Service and we are tackling around ED&I.

Engaging with under-represented communities.

How will we know that we are achieving?

Reduction of under representation of women and ethnic minorities in the science profession particularly at senior levels

Gender pay gap continues to close year on year

Disability pay gaps are undertaken and understood

Ethnicity pay gaps are undertaken and understood

Equality impact assessments are evidence-based and inform decision making and we have an increase in their creation.

Both Civil Service and Met Office ED&I actions are understood, reported wider and widely discussed/acted upon.

What did we deliver in terms of actions in 2021-2022:

We obtained Investors in Diversity accreditation, choosing this accreditation from a range of potential ED&I benchmarks

We launched a Return to Work well Programme

Our post COVID Return to the office approach considered ED&I extensively

We made staff aware of why people use pronouns and how they could use them

We improved visibility of our ED&I external accreditations and approaches

We used gender coding software to check our adverts to reduce a gender bias and improve the diversity of applicants

We ensured that those supporting mental health issues or those raising disputes (our Mental Health First Aiders and Dignity and Respect at Work Team) have appropriate access to support.

We looked at the impact COVID had on our staff to produce research publications and how this impacted on different protected characteristics groups

We refined our Equality Impact Assessment process.

We encouraged our networks to look at events from an intersectional lens i.e., staff or people do not just fit one protected characteristic

We developed clearer career pathways and professional skills frameworks.

We have engaged more with partners in the public sector especially those in the Southwest through networking and knowledge sharing.

We joined the Exeter Community Safety Partnership and are working to raise awareness of hate crime and how staff can report hate crimes.

We are working with our staff networks to improve our workplace reasonable adjustments guidance

Our communications team expanded the range of diverse imagery for use by staff

Objective 3 - Increasing representation of under-represented groups at all levels

We will achieve it by:

Maintaining Disability Confident Level 2 status and work toward gaining level 3 leader status

Ensuring that our recruitment and selection processes are fully inclusive

Analysing our recruitment and staffing data and mapping against campaigns national and local demographics

Mapping where our Early Careers applicants are coming from and if these areas of the country and/or communities which would not traditionally be represented by the Civil Service or STEM careers.

Working with Civil Service, Industry and Profession partners to address under representation.

How will we know that we are achieving?

Our workforce diversity reflects the UK working age population

Candidate data will show an improvement in the diversity of applicants

Our apprenticeship intake shows a diversity of applicants

What did we deliver in terms of actions in 2021-2022:

We started to compare our recruitment data to Civil Service and national statistics

We launched an Early Careers Strategy

We created a Recruitment Prospectus

We changed our software so we can advertise wider, faster and across more channels.

We adapted our flexible working policy to encourage applications from a wider geographical area

Objective 4 - Zero tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination

We will achieve it by:

Tackling bullying, harassment, and discrimination

Building confidence in employees to challenge inappropriate behaviours

Raising awareness of what is inappropriate behaviour

How will we know that we are achieving?

Employees will be confident to speak out

Bullying, harassment, and discrimination related cases drop in the long term

Improvements in our discrimination and harassment scores in the annual people survey

Our approach is known and understood by the public and partners.

What did we deliver in terms of actions in 2021-2022:

We created new digital behaviour etiquette guidance.

We shared stories about bullying, harassment, and discrimination with staff so they could understand issues

Our Employee Networks and Sponsored groups

Our staff networks play a crucial role in our work to embed equality, diversity, and inclusion throughout the Met Office, working with us to:

create a healthy and inclusive workplace, where people feel like they belong

improve our working environment by providing advice and guidance especially in relation to equality impact assessments

raise awareness and understanding through activities, events, training, and sharing their stories through our ‘Walking in my Shoes’ articles on our intranet, which always receive in excess of 1000 views.

We have 13 networks in the Met Office, each network is run by its members (“bottom up” organised), and they all work slightly differently. In 2021, we produced guidance for setting up and maintaining a staff network and we are currently reviewing how networks are supported by their network sponsor and how we can work to maximise their impact.

A representative from each network attends the Diversity Council, providing an update on network activities but also sharing network concerns and issues, which are then fed into the ED&I committee.

Our networks and sponsored groups

Staff network Highlights

As part of developing this report, we are now asking Staff Networks to report annually about their activities. Some of their highlights from 2021 include:

428 employees are involved in the networks (this is 20% of all staff)

2 new networks (ADHD and a Women’s Network)

80 colleagues attended a generic menopause workshop

3 Network leads nominated for outstanding colleague in our Staff Awards for Excellence

1 Network lead is the winner of outstanding colleague in our Staff Awards for Excellence

Autism Network is a runner up in our Staff Awards for Excellence

45 managers attended a line-managers menopause workshop

#PurpleLightUp – to celebrate UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Met Office HQ in Exeter was lit up purple

931 people are members of staff network yammer pages

Other key activities the networks have undertaken:

Equality Impact Assessment for ‘Future Normal’ – how and where we work

Reviewing training pilots for Better Together (our new ED&I behavioural changing course) and Equality Impact Assessments

Regular network meetings and ‘Spotlight’ sessions on topics of choice

Testing the new intranet site to meet accessibility standards

Recruiting Wellbeing Champions

Providing support and advice to network members especially returning to the office but also working from home

We have a range of staff networks representing a number of the protected characteristics.

Our staff networks have the opportunity to collaborate with other Civil Service Networks and staff are able to join wider networks, which is especially important for networks that we do not have internally such as the Civil Service Deaf and Hard of Hearing Network (CSDHHN) and Civil Service Eating Disorder Network (CSEDN).

We also have a number of other groups which support both diversity and inclusion and wellbeing. A number of our employees also volunteer to be:

Mental Health First Aiders

We currently have 37 Mental Health First Aider providing information and a signposting service for our staff and managers. Our first aiders are trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of common mental health issues, provide first aid support and signpost where necessary.

DRAW (Dignity and Respect at Work) Advisors

This is a long running scheme in the Met Office; our nine volunteers are trained to provide a confidential and informal service for any colleagues who are experiencing harassment or bullying, listening, and signposting to other sources of support and advice.

Wellbeing Champions

In launching our Wellbeing Strategy in late 2021, we have started to develop a network of Wellbeing Champions; this group of volunteers encourage colleagues’ conversations around the directorates on wellbeing. The champions also encourage participation in wellbeing initiatives and work with other networks to promote wellbeing campaigns.

Ally Community

Our Ally Community was launched in early 2021 and is steadily growing. It is a space where staff come together for learning about and celebrating diversity, but also understanding some of the challenges other colleagues or communities may face and how through their increased understanding they challenge perceptions, stereotypes, and bias. In the last year, the Ally community have held 9 virtual events including:

We are what we eat: migration and food in Britain

Learn about ADHD

LGBT+ awareness

Internationals in the UK – cultural awareness

Autism Awareness

Returners Career Programme

Returning to work after a prolonged personal absence or life-shock can be incredibly hard. In the summer of 2021, the Returners Career Programme pilot was developed. The programme is designed to upskill and provide career boosting opportunities at a time when normal career paths are disrupted. Employees returning from a prolonged absence can access coaching and undertake a three-month internal placement with another Met Office Team or creating a short-term project that has clear outcomes.

Case Study about returning to work

“I knew from my first maternity leave how difficult a return to work can be, so the second time around me and my partner share our parental leave, I took 9 months, and he took 3 months. I applied to be a visiting scientist at Monash University, Melbourne. Writing a business case based on a science project that I knew could be productive in the 3-month period. I also had the opportunity to work at the Bureau of Meteorology, this boosted my links and gave me a greater understanding of their organisation. Being away from the normal office environment made the transition back to work much gentler. From a mental health perspective, it made the experience of returning from maternity leave much more positive and once back in Exeter, I could talk about my new work experience rather than feel I’d been out of the loop for a year.”

The programme is still in its infancy, but programme information has been viewed more than 260 times and two people have accessed the coaching element of this programme.

People Survey

Our annual People Survey provides an indication of workplace experience and engagement. 1593 staff responded and we had an engagement index score of 70%, the civil service as a whole had engagement score of 82%.

The key ED&I headlines are:

In 2021, 7% of Civil Servants indicated that they have been discriminated against at work in the past 12 months.

In 2021, 7% of Civil Servants indicated that they have been bullied and/or harassed at work in the past 12 months.

We are working with our Networks, Staff and Trade Union to address issues raised about discrimination and bullying.

In relation to discrimination concerns, a number of actions have been taken to address working patterns and location concerns through our Future Normal project. Actions are being taken by the People Directorate to also address understanding around disability, gender, and mental health.

In relation to bullying concerns, work has been undertaken to emphasize our new Organisation Values/behaviours expected, improve management capabilities and clarity communication expectations.

Outputs from the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion team who are exploring wider Civil Service response to this issue, will be reviewed and actioned.

We recognise it is hard to totally remove all instances of bullying, harassment, and discrimination from the environment we operate in. For example, we interact with many customers, the public, staff travel and visit public places across the globe.

We will do all in our power to minimise exposure of our staff to such events and ensure staff feel confident to report such issues if they occur and that they will be addressed.

Future Normal – our new way of working

As an organisation we were keen to look at the way we worked and ensure it aligned to best practice. The Future Normal project team was created from stakeholders across the office in May 2020.

The disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to make rapid changes to the way we work, whilst continuing to be driven by our purpose. Keeping staff safe and able to thrive was at our core. ​​​​​​​

The aim has been to make the Met Office an even greater place to work, whilst working towards our Net Zero intentions. We’re committed to supporting each other and our differing needs.

We have engaged throughout the change process with our staff and networks to consider what the changes mean in practice for our staff. This included the production of a Full Equality Impact Assessment which has been used to shape our subsequent floorplate design work.

Figure 1: E1 floorplate with height adjustable desks, acoustic dampening ceilings and lighting which reduces migraines, seasonal affective disorder, and eye strain.

Figure 2: Quieter spaces for neurodiverse staff and others who need spaces to concentrate

Figure 3: Clearer furnishing and carpet contrasts for staff with visual impairment

This impact assessment advances equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not by making visible issues which previously had not been considered. It identified solutions for managers and those tasked with the change processes enabling changes to occur in a timely manner.

We are Equality Street

With a membership of just under 400 employees, our Equality Street yammer page encourages conversations on equality, diversity, and inclusion, in the last year, there has been a huge number of conversations, but some of the highlights include:

Sharing learning via podcasts, events, books, and TV programmes

Improving our interview process and how we can make it more inclusive

Exploring the experience of being a victim of hate crime and how to report

Violence towards women and girls

Awareness days, weeks, and months

Religious events and celebrations

Say my name – pronouncing names correctly.

Met Net 3 – our new intranet site

Our new intranet launching this year has been created with engagement from with the Accessibility and Disability Network from the start.

COP26

As well as supporting Government with our science to inform decision making around climate action, we hosted an ED&I focussed event ‘What women bring to climate science’ in our Science Pavilion at COP26 in a session co-designed and led by the chair of our 'Women in Climate' network. Our Chief Executive (Professor Penny Endersby) along with the IPCC (Ko Barrett) and WMO (Dr Elena Manaenkova), Fundación MERI (Agustina Lo Bianco) discussed what women bring to climate science and how we can reach gender equality and increase diversity in science leadership.

Better Together

In September, we launched ‘Better Together’ an interactive workshop, the training uses a series of short films to unravel individual stories about exclusion in the workplace which potentially, could happen to any of us. The design of this new workshop moves away from the traditional legal focus of equality to one focusing on building an inclusive culture. Since October, 235 employees have participated in the workshop.

Wellbeing

In the autumn of 2021, we launched our Wellbeing Strategy, as we want to create an environment that supports and encourages a healthy balance between work and home life and develop a culture where we talk openly about our challenges and where we can find appropriate support. To deliver this we are:

Growing our community of Mental Health First Aiders who work alongside our new network of Wellbeing Champions

Developing wellbeing learning opportunities through self-help

Creating a Wellbeing hub.

As part of our wellbeing offer, we offer a range of resources including:

Connect 5 - a programme designed to increase confidence and skills of line managers in having conversations about mental health and wellbeing

An Employee Assistance Programme – which provides services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we have commissioned an improved offering from 1st April 2022

Wellbeing workshop for all employees and an online mental wellbeing at Work course.

Our achievements

Mindful Employer

The Met Office signed the Charter for Employers positive about mental health in 2015. The Mindful employer initiative is aimed at increasing awareness of mental health at work and providing support for businesses in recruiting and retaining staff.

Disability Confident Employer

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. Disability Confident is a government scheme designed to help us recruit and retain disabled people for their skills and talents. The scheme ensures that those with disabilities and long-term health conditions are guaranteed an interview when applying for vacancies within our organisation when they meet the minimum skill criteria requirements for the role. We then begin our journey of working with Business Disability Forum to work towards becoming a Disability Confident Leader and reiterating our commitment to diversifying our workforce and retaining people with disabilities and/or health conditions.

Investors in Diversity

In October 2021 we were awarded the Investors in Diversity Award. The Investors in Diversity Award is a recognised national equality standard providing organisations in all sectors with a bespoke approach for improving Fairness, Respect, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement (FREDIE) practices in the workplace. Integral to the award is feedback designed to help guide us so that we can continue to progress and improve our diversity and inclusion work. It was encouraging to see that a number of the recommendations in the feedback we received had already been identified internally as actions.

Our diversity data

We encourage our employees to share their diversity data. This helps us understand the make-up of our organisation and how representative we are against the UK working age population and in the southwest where our headquarters is located.

Data is collected through self-declaration via our People Centre, whilst we encourage employees to share their information, employees can use the ‘prefer not to say’ or leave blank. This does mean we do not have the whole story about our organisation’s make-up but will keep working hard in the year ahead to encourage more employees to share their data.

Below is an illustration of the diversity data as of snapshot date – 01 March 2022.

The data is based on the fields in People Hub, and it is recognised that the wording to access fields in an industry wide product may not match best practice.

Headlines

91% of our staff have made staff sensitive information declarations this is up from 69% in April 2021 and 43% in April 2020.

Directorate declaration rates range from 86 to 95%.

Part Time Full Time split: 83% of our staff are full-time and 17% part-time.

Sex at Birth: 62% of our staff are male and 38% female at birth (HMRC data)

Gender identity: 52% of our staff identify as male, 35% as female, 6% do not wish to declare or declare another gender identity and 7% are unknown.

Religion and belief: 50% of our staff have no religion, 25% are Christian, 14% do not want to declare, 2% are other religion and belief and 8% are unknown.

Race/Ethnicity: 82% of our staff are white, 6% do not wish to declare and 4% are minority ethnicities with 6% unknown.

Sexual orientation: 74% of are staff identify as heterosexual, 12% do not wish to declare, 5% are LGBTQA+ and 8% are unknown.

Total number of employees is X (figure in annual accounts)

20% of our staff state they have a disability in our staff (people) survey.

What our data tell us?

Our 2021 independent staff survey indicated that 20% of staff had a health condition or illness lasting or expected to last 12 months or more. This is in line with the national average. This aligns to our Investors in Diversity 2021 survey indicated around 19% of staff had a long standing physical or mental health condition or disability.

The largest grouping of conditions relates to mental health conditions or illness. This is supported by our employee relations data.

In any year we have around 12% of female staff on maternity leave.

We have a strong community of neurodiverse staff, the proportion of which are estimated by some in this community to be as high as 20% in some areas. (It is difficult to robustly establish as many staff do not have a formal diagnosis and openly affiliate.)

Further work to do on our data

We know there is much more we can do with data about our staff including:

Improving our diversity data, so encouraging employees to feel confident about sharing their data rather than prefer not to say.

Being able to track the proportion of staff who have workplace reasonable adjustments, our new guidance and processes being developed should help with this.

Analysing end of year performance markings by protected characteristic.

Publishing data on staff accessing learning and development opportunities

We are now tracking (since October 2021) ED&I information in recruitment and will be in a better position next year to provide an accurate breakdown of applicants who apply, are shortlisted, and appointed. Our current data is:

Ethnicity	2022 Applicants*	2022 Interviewee	2022 Hired
White	72%	87%	86%
Ethnic Minority	25%	11%	20%
Unknown	3%	2%	4%

*Includes staff who may be ineligible for jobs due to security and nationality clearances

Gender Pay Gap 2021

We are required by law to report annually on our gender pay gap. The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce and is different to equal pay which focuses on the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs.

The 2021 gender pay gap figures show a mean gender pay gap of 6.5% and median gender pay gap of 4.0%. Our gender pay gap is reducing overall. The mean gender pay gap has consistently reduced each year from 11.7% in 2017 to 6.5% in 2021.

We have seen a decrease in the median gender pay gap following a slight increase in 2020, so from 9.9% in 2017 to 5.7% in 2020 to 4% in 2021. In addition, the median pay gap at Grade 6 and Grade 7 has now been closed (the median hourly rate is identical for both male and female staff, which shows we are progressing in the right direction.

The Met Office Board and our Executive Board

Our Met Office Board is led by an independent, non-executive Chair. The Board primary responsibility is developing the long-term strategy of the Met Office. The makeup of the board is 7 male and 7 female and 1 female Board ready scheme member. This meets and exceeds the Hampton-Alexander target of 33% female to 77% male for FTSE100 companies.

Our Executive Board provides day-to-day leadership, direction and management of the Met Office in order to ensure successful delivery of the aims, objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The makeup of our Executive Board is 7 males and 3 females.

Appendix 1: ED&I Actions 2022-2023

Objective 1 - Engaging with and understanding the diversity of our people and those we serve

Improving workplace adjustments guidance and processes further to ensure that adjustments are made in a more timely way for all staff.

Expanding the usage of our ED&I calendar so we can raise awareness both internally and externally of key diversity dates

Mapping our UK customers to identify any gaps in engagement

Reducing the number of staff who tick ‘prefer not to say’ on our diversity monitoring by 10% through increased communication as to why the data matter, and improving trust in messages around anonymity.

Objective 2 - Advancing equality of opportunity

Looking at the new Civil Service Diversity benchmark and adding multi-year actions

Mapping equality charters, other benchmarking schemes and ED&I awards to enter and choosing which to participate in from 2023 and who to partner with, in line with new Civil Service D&I guidance.

Reviewing our Science Progressions processes and talent management approaches ensuring they meet a best practice and both the Met Office and Government Diversity & Inclusion Strategies

Developing guidance for managers and staff around supporting Trans applicants and staff.

Supporting our managers understanding of disability through access to Business Disability Forum resources

Identifying action plan with the support of Business Disability Forum to Achieve Level 3 Disability Confident

Applying for Carer Confident Active

Providing information for our suppliers and partners to ensure they support our ED&I Strategy.

Objective 3 - Increasing representation of under-represented groups at all levels

Explore work experience opportunities for candidates with a disability

Analysing our staff and recruitment data against the UK working age population and identifying subsequent actions based on the data.

Random sampling of recruitment interview panels to ensure diversity of panels

Work with Business Disability Forum to ensure up to 5 of our key policies and procedures are disability inclusive

Objective 4 - Zero tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination

Develop and implement a learning pathway for DRAW volunteers

Develop a ‘report and support’ tool to enable people to call out inappropriate behaviour

Use Anti-Bullying Week to highlight the work of DRAW and also promote zero-tolerance to bullying, harassment and discrimination

Review our Dignity at Work guidance to ensure that sexual harassment is included in-line with Equality & Human Rights Commission recommendations.

Identify the actions to be taken to meet the new Civil Service Bullying and Harassment standard requirements

Explore if our public website can be amended to direct victims of abuse to appropriate support pathways. (Consider work with https://uksaysnomore.org/

Met Office
FitzRoy Road
Exeter
Devon
EX1 3PB
United Kingdom

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