making communities visible in
policy-making
Migrants make up more than 16% of UK’s population, yet they remain significantly under-represented in decision-making spaces. This must change.
Join our advocacy campaigns to help build a stronger, more representative democracy.
Social Equity Centre champions fair and proportionate representation of migrants in decision-making, with a particular focus on local government workforces. Building on our work to date, we expand our focus to migrant participation in public life to amplify shared voices to drive meaningful change in how participation and decision making happen across the UK.
Migrant Participation Forum is a collective, national advocacy platform created to bring migrant organisations together to work towards four key objectives:
Local Government has specific public sector equality duties to foster cohesion and proactively create equal opportunities for all communities. While many local authorities develop engagement programmes to include migrants in participation initiatives, migrants still face significant challenges in accessing local government jobs. Our research shows that:
1. migrants are significantly under-represented in local government workforces
2. migration data is not collected; thus, migrants remain invisible in diversity workforce evaluations
3. there are no specific initiatives or strategies to encourage migrants to apply for jobs in the sector
To assist local authorities in progressing their migrant inclusion work, we have developed the Migrant Inclusive Local Government Pledge. To learn more about what the pledge involves and the benefits for signatory authorities, see the toolkit below.
