4.1
Economic Development
The council’s current Economic Strategy runs between 2018 to 2023 and focuses on prioritising local wealth and the local economy. The updating of the council’s Economic Strategy provides a timely opportunity to embed anti-racism best practice into the future ways we intend to support our local economy, businesses, and residents. The council understands that we cannot prioritise local wealth and economy without outlining what that means for businesses owned by Black and Racially Minoritized people.
As part of the data insight to inform the refresh of the economic strategy a mapping exercise of Black & Racially Minoritised businesses in the city will be undertaken sensitively. This mapping exercise is important to ensure robust data for the economic strategy and it will have a direct, practical implication on the support that other services, such as Procurement, can provide to Black & Racially Minoritised owned businesses.
The council is aware of a 2020 report by British Business Bank which highlighted that Black & Racially Minoritised entrepreneurs experience far worse outcomes in their business journey than their White counterparts:
“Black business owners have median turnover of just £25,000, compared to £35,000 for White business owners... only half of Black entrepreneurs meet their non-financial aims, compared to nearly 70% of White entrepreneurs. Those from Asian and Other Ethnic Minority backgrounds have better outcomes than Black entrepreneurs. However, they have a substantially lower success rate for starting a business and see less success overall compared to White entrepreneurs.” (Alone, Together: Entrepreneurship and Diversity in the UK, Olivia Wyman, page 5).
Community engagement points to flourishing small business ownership by Black & Racially Minoritised residents in the city. A recent council funded networking event for Brighton's Black community returned a survey that showed over half of those who completed the survey were freelance or self-employed. (BARCO, Black Networking Event Survey, 2022).
Spreading the word about the Business Intellectual Property Centre in Black & Racially Minoritised networks is vital in increasing the diversity of entrepreneurs using the BIPC.
Out priority actions are:
- mapping of Black & Racially Minoritised businesses across the city
- to embed Anti-racism principles into new Economic Strategy 2023 to 2028
- for the Business & Intellectual Property Centre to increase engagement with Black & Racially Minoritised entrepreneurs
- hold specific sessions tailored for ‘BME’ and intersectional entrepreneurs at the Business & Intellectual Property Centre
4.2
Emergency food needs
One of the areas Brighton & Hove City Council are working on to address economic disparity is in the access to emergency food for Black & Racially Minoritised communities. Both national and local data points to disproportionality in Black and Racially Minortised people accessing emergency food. This was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, Brighton & Hove Food Partnership surveyed people who have been in receipt of emergency food parcels and people who considered themselves ‘struggling to afford food’. The survey found that 15% of respondents were from Black & Racially Minoritised backgrounds. (Summary of Key Findings for people in food poverty Brighton & Hove – BAME Supplementary report September 2020)
Low income was mentioned as one of the main reasons respondents who experience racism needed to access emergency food. We are aware that Black & Racially Minoritised people are overrepresented in the lower salary pay grades nationally, locally and in our council.
Local data suggests that there is a huge disparity in unemployment rates and economic activity amongst Black & Racially Minoritised communities in relation to White British residents. At the time of the 2011 census, Black African residents had an unemployment rate of 18.7% and Gypsy or Irish traveller communities had an unemployment rate of 15.3% - these are over twice the city average of 7.3%. And, although economic activity rates between white British and ‘BME’ residents are very similar, hovering at around 66 to 67%, there are great differences within Racially Minoritised groups in the city. You can find these statistics in the Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Brighton & Hove report.
All this builds on the local knowledge we already had from focus groups delivered on the same topic of emergency food access. Those focus groups, delivered in 2018, raised concerns over awareness and accessibility of emergency food in the city. (Focus Group Understanding ‘BME’ Poverty 2018)
This suggests that Black & Racially Minoritised residents are at a disadvantage in accessing emergency food in Brighton & Hove and supports the need for specific Anti-racism work in this area.
In November 2021, the decision was made to fund an emergency food needs assessment specifically for Black & Racially Minoritised. The aim of this is to build a thorough understanding of the nuances of the emergency food needs of the city’s Black & Racially Minoritised communities, with particular focus on access to foods of cultural relevance and the food banks available that provide these foods. Next step in this piece of work is to consider the findings and create actions to address the disparities identified.
Our priority actions are to:
- consider the findings of the ‘BME’ emergency food needs assessment and create actions in response.
4.3
Sport facilities
Brighton & Hove City Council provides sports facilities in Brighton & Hove which are both popular and essential in providing opportunities for health, wellbeing, and leisure activities.
The council currently has seven indoor leisure facilities which include three swimming pools. These are all operated by Freedom Leisure a not-for-profit Trust on behalf of council.
The Active Communities Plan (ACP) – is a partnership between Brighton & Hove City Council and Freedom Leisure which aims to provide access to the leisure centres in the city for everyone in Brighton and Hove. Sessions and engagement with intersectional minoritised communities helps to increase participation in sport and physical activity in the city in line with the objectives in the council’s physical activity strategy.
Our priority actions are to:
- support FL to deliver specific sessions for Black & Racially Minoritised people as part of the council’s ‘Active Community’ plan
- have ongoing dialogue with Freedom Leisure to support them in increasing diversity of their marketing and publicity material
4.4
Arts, culture, events and museums
Brighton & Hove offers a rich selection of places to visit across our museum and heritage sites, for both visitors and residents. The city is a centre of culture with major events taking place across the year.
Within the heart of the city lies the Royal Pavilion Estate. This includes a royal palace and regency gardens, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, and sitting alongside is the Brighton Dome and Corn Exchange. In addition, there are three other museum and heritage sites across the city, each with a unique offer. Since 2020, the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust manage and operate the museum and heritage sites. We pledge to ensure our museums and heritage sites align with our status as an anti-racist council. We will achieve this through working closely with the Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust (RMPT) and with any additional artistic and creative commissions and/or partnerships.
Brighton & Hove is known internationally as a centre of creativity. We are one of the most dynamic and innovative creative clusters in the UK and home to hundreds of artists and creative producers. We will collaborate with the cultural community to lead on anti-racist practices in the city, prioritising access for artists and audiences. Council-led initiatives and partnerships will address the historical lack of diverse representation which exists nationally in the cultural sector. Brighton & Hove City Council is proud to support and commission public art, with a new public art strategy launched in 2022.
Our priority actions are to:
- engage with Black & Racially Minoritised artists in the city to better understand their perspectives, experience and needs and respond in the framing and design of our activity
- set a target for number of multi-cultural and community-based events in the city annual events programme and proactively reach out to Black & Racially Minoritised groups and organises to submit events
- review venue hire procedure and process with anti-racism intentions and make necessary amends.
- engage with local Black & Racially Minoritised led groups to understand how the council can increase participation by ‘BME’ groups in new and ongoing developments and activities at the seafront.
- review our events charter to include anti-racism principles.
- have ongoing dialogue with the Royal Pavilion & Museum Trust to support their work to decolonise museums and embed anti-racism practice in their service
4.5
Transport
Buses
19% of ‘BME’ residents travel to work by bus, compared to 13% of White British residents. This is not of significant concern and supports the council’s priority for more residents using sustainable transport.
Its significance is in the experiences of racism while using the city’s buses. For example, the council is aware, through community engagement that many Muslim women have been verbally abused by other customers while travelling by bus. The impact of experiencing intersectional racist abuse – for one’s skin colour, nationality, and faith – is extremely traumatic.
There is extensive work ongoing to address racism experienced by customers on buses. The council are working closely with Brighton & Hove buses, which delivers 97% of bus services in the city, to address racism experienced on their buses. Most of the work focuses on informing customers of ways to report racism. Brighton & Hove Buses have produced informative hate crime posters and provide local charity Racial Harassment Forum with free poster space on buses to inform customers of ways to report racism and hate crime.
Bus drivers have been provided with a clear hate crime policy which includes information about what drivers should do to keep customers and themselves safe, and what to do if the victim of racism does not want to report a hate incident/crime. The company also has an Accessibility and Communities team and a Safeguarding team which works to prevent and protect residents from harm, engaging with Black & Racially Minoritised resident to understand their experience and to design a response.
As Brighton & Hove Buses is a private organisation, the council is limited in the measures it can take to directly change policy. Nevertheless, the council’s transport service is committed to ongoing dialogue with the bus company about reducing and alleviating the impact of racism on our city’s buses and embedding anti-racism principles in transport policies.
Parking
At present, the council is unclear on the experience of Black & Racially Minoritised residents of its parking services. This is because of a lack of national and local data and minimal community engagement on this topic. The first step forward is a planned and systemic review of parking policies and procedures and engagement with Black & Racially Minoritised residents to understand their experience of the service. This may include but is not limited to the use of parking permits, parking zoning, access to disabled parking and the process for challenging parking charge notices.
The transport service is also committed to establishing a workforce race equality standard like the work being carried out by the council’s children and adults social work teams.
Our priority actions are to:
- review of permit renewal system to include race equalities data collection
- establish Workforce Race Equality Standards for transport team
- commit to ongoing dialogue with all operators via the Enhanced Partnership to improve anti-racism policies and best practice