Anti-Racist Action Plan 2025

As a provider of homes and services in diverse communities across South Wales, United Welsh has an important role to play in creating an anti-racist Wales.

We currently provide almost 6,700 homes and we aim to build 1,300 more within our current five-year strategy. Our services also support thousands of people to live happily and independently.

We recently updated our Anti-Racist Action Plan for 2025:

• Here is the 12-month Anti-Racist Action Plan.
• Here is the Anti-Racist Plan summary.
• Here is the Actions Summary.

The plan currently focuses on three areas:

1. Representation: We will work to continuously improve the ethnic diversity of the United Welsh Board and staff at all levels.
2. Service provision: We will embed anti-racism and race equality throughout our service design and delivery.
3. Communication and engagement: We will show our support for racial equality and provide platforms for people from ethnic minority backgrounds to shape, influence and change the services we deliver.

Group Chief Executive Richard Mann said:

“This is the fourth year that we are publishing our actions and progress for tackling racism, with the long-term vision of becoming an anti-racist organisation.

“We are pleased to see greater representation of colleagues at United Welsh from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared with last year’s report. However, we recognise that we have more work to do to bring more ethnically-diverse colleagues into more senior roles.

“Improving the collection, recording and use of our data also continues to be an area of significant focus for us. This is not a quick fix, but laying the groundwork to obtain more accurate reporting and customer insight is a crucial step for us to create more meaningful change across our service areas.”

What did we do in 2024?

• We continued to support the Get Into Housing project led by CCHA to work with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people who want to start a career in housing or gain work experience. A new staff member joined us through the project in 2024 and started a new role in January 2025.
• We recruited a new Board member, who joined our board through the Pathway to Board initiative
• 90% of staff completed equality action training, and 89% attended unconscious bias training
• We calculated and published the ethnic minority pay gap for staff in our annual report: based on median hourly pay it is 16% (2023: 13%). 7% of our workforce are ethnically diverse (2023: 6%).
• We held an all-staff hybrid briefing to launch our Anti-Racist Action Plan, raising awareness of its need and purpose
• We created a two-year action plan for EDI data focused on data storage development, collection and maintenance. This is to improve how we consistently collect, maintain and use data overall to evolve our services.
• We continued to publicise our support for minority ethnic colleagues and communities. Examples include a blog for Black History Month, a case study for Refugee Week, awareness-raising for Eid Al-Adha, a staff training session with Tai Pawb about housing for Asylum Seekers, and support for the Pathway to Board project.
• We reviewed and republished numerous policies and equality impact assessments (EQIAs)
• We continued our bi-monthly EDI Forum, which has an open-door for any staff member to attend, influence and lead conversation.

What did we do in 2023?

• We launched a recruitment campaign for new Board members, emphasising why we need diversity on our Board. One of our new Board members joined us from the Pathway to Board programme, which works with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people to support them to be ‘board ready’.
• We updated and relaunched our recruitment policy and procedure. Any trained staff member can volunteer to join a recruitment panel and support Employing Managers with the hiring process to make the process more inclusive.
• We supported the Get Into Housing project. We offered a total of five, six-month work placements, and three individuals went on to gain permanent employment with us.
• We created new brand guidelines, which included developing new artwork to represent more people with different skin tones in our communications.
• We created an Inclusive Language Guide to support staff with recognising the importance and use of inclusive language.
• We started an EDI Data Working Group to identify what EDI data we hold, and to consider where the gaps and inconsistencies lie.
• We shared the results of an anonymous staff survey about how inclusive our staff feel United Welsh is as an organisation. 93% of those surveyed felt that there had been an improvement in our approach to tackling racism.
• We provided advice to staff about reporting racism, support available following a racist experience, and what to do if you witness racist behaviour.
• We developed and implemented a diversity calendar of events to celebrate different cultures and identities.
• We celebrated Black History Month, hosted guest speakers to inform staff about Black History and the Windrush Legacy, and raised awareness of Ramadan.
• We incorporated EDI and tackling racial inequality as a standard agenda item in Executive team meetings.

Our Strategy 2023/27 states our dedication to equality, diversity and inclusion.

In 2025, we will embark on the third year of United Welsh’s five-year business strategy. Advancing racial equity remains a priority for us, and we look forward to continuing our work with customers and partner organisations such as Tai Pawb, other community landlords, local authorities and Welsh Government, to take positive action and deliver change.