How we are responding to these challenges
Workforce
We continue to foster an inclusive and supportive culture, but we have had to adjust rapidly to do things differently in areas such as remote working. We have actively promoted an inclusive and flexible approach through the pandemic, adjusting to individual needs around issues such as health vulnerabilities, mental health, and caring responsibilities. We have embraced the opportunity of technology to deliver for our workforce and our customers in these circumstances, and will continue to invest in these opportunities.
We have launched the council’s new People Strategy, embodying our ambition to put inclusion and respect at the heart of the council’s culture.
Community
At the pandemic’s start, we moved quickly to establish Locality Hubs to deliver emergency support and information in the main residential areas. These hubs have built new community partnerships and developed our understanding of community needs in the different localities. These teams have had to adapt on a regular basis and balance their work of emergency support with developing longer-term, more sustainable, solutions for residents. In practice, this has been working more closely with partners and community groups, listening to residents and an increased focus on addressing the causal issues. A new model of service delivery is now being designed that embeds this learning across council teams.
Black Lives Matter and the Anti-Racism Charter
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the summer of 2020, and the Rhodes Must Fall campaign in Oxford, highlight the impact of structural racism in our city, society and country. BLM have made it clear it is time to commit to having difficult conversations that enable us to become actively anti-racist and not simply against racism.
To demonstrate leadership for the city, the council worked with communities to develop and launch the Oxford Anti-Racism Charter, which set out what racism is and made commitments to becoming an anti-racist city. We continue our commitment to the Charter and to becoming an anti-racist city. The Charter demonstrates our intent to tackle institutional racism, and we have committed to taking specific actions to be anti-racist. The Charter also exists for other organisations and individuals to sign.
Deprivation
Oxford is a wealthy city but with stark inequalities. Before the pandemic, around 12% of the city’s neighbourhoods were in the bottom 20% of the whole country. The need for emergency support from the council and community groups has grown over the course of the pandemic, with more people needing emergency help with basics like food, fuel and rent, and more need from schools for youth support services to help children who are struggling in formal education. We continue to fund youth and holiday activities to provide non-formal education, our locality hubs model is evolving to provide longer-lasting support to prevent emergency needs.
Immigration
Oxford is a world-renowned city and attracts people from around the world for work, education and to establish new lives in the UK. We are proud to welcome and support migrants, and have an active third sector supporting refugees and migrants. There are well-established communities with roots in South Asia, the Caribbean, China, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, East Timor and West Papua. Many of these are now second and third-generation communities.
More recently, we have seen migration from areas of conflict or with supported migration schemes, including Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Hong Kong. Since Brexit and the pandemic, there has been some emigration of EU citizens, so these demographics are constantly changing. What all have in common is a need to access council services equitably, for housing, community spaces, transport and employment opportunities. As migrants, they may need extra support to use our services and understand their rights and responsibilities.
