Embrace at West Yorkshire Combined Authority

Embrace is the staff network for colleagues who identify as Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME).  The network was set up in 2020.

• West Yorkshire has a cultural richness and ethnic diversity, with around 20 per cent of its community coming from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
• The Combined Authority recognises it needs to build a more balanced, inclusive and diverse workforce that better represents the West Yorkshire community it serves.
• Currently the workforce is not balanced, and the profile needs to change. The Embrace staff network group was formed in July 2020 in response to this, it is open to all who identify as BAME and meets on a monthly basis.
• Embrace is working with the Combined Authority's Senior Leadership Team to implement solutions around staffing (recruitment, induction training and progression), communication and data that will promote equality, inclusion and diversity and address the balance in the organisation.   

Please click here to review our 2023 ethnicity pay gap report.

Alison Lowe, CBE, the Deputy Mayor of West Yorkshire, made this speech at the ceremony for the installation of a Leeds Civic Trust Blue Plaque for David Oluwale in the Meadow Lane Green Space, Leeds, on 25.4.2022

Staff network groups are critical for EDI at the Combined Authority, in providing nurturing spaces for colleagues, often with a shared heritage, experience (indirect or direct) or characteristic that come together to support each other. As well as supporting the organisation and the EDI activities in which they work, staff network groups can be effective mobilisers to support and empower colleagues, raise awareness, assess, inform decisions and/or problem solving, and enable innovative approaches to strengthen EDI efforts at the Combined Authority.