Our annual equality report: what we did in 2024 to 2025

This annual report sets out the steps we’ve taken to achieve our five equality objectives.

The plan has five outcomes. We will:

• improve the use of equality data and information
• work with employers and leaders within social care and early years to help advance equality at work
• work to make sure equality, accessibility and inclusion are central to our work of building a digitally ready social care and early years workforce
• support the workforce by promoting our well-being resources and offers, and improving access to them
• promote opportunities to work with us, to help us achieve a more diverse and inclusive Board, staff and regulatory panel, and to widen our networks.

We’ve embedded equality, diversity and inclusion to achieve the objectives of our strategic equality plan throughout our work, as well as in our work to:

• eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t.

Impact statement

Reflections on our progress from 2024 to 2025 have highlighted that we are beginning to see the impact of our Strategic equality plan (2022 to 2027).

Through the development, continuation and refinement of robust data collection, targeted equality, diversity and inclusion programmes, and inclusive engagement, we’re laying the foundations for long-term change across the social care sector in Wales, and continuing our organisation’s journey to anti-discrimination.

Here’s some of the measurable impact:

Building a strong evidence base

The Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and Have Your Say survey have provided us with baseline data to monitor experiences of discrimination, progression and inclusion in the social care sector. These tools will allow us to track trends over time and make sure our work is targeted and impactful. This data has given us a clear understanding of the experiences of different groups working in the social care sector in Wales. This year we've also launched an early years and childcare survey to better understand the experience of the workforce and we’ll report our findings in 2025 to 2026.

Our internal data dashboards have improved our ability to understand the demographics and experiences of the registered workforce, enabling more informed decision-making within our organisation and improving access to data that can be used in equality impact assessments.

Ensuring representation and inclusion

We have taken steps to make sure our organisation is on the journey to being representative of the sectors we serve. Building on our Board recruitment in 2023 to 2024, we’ve seen increased diversity in our fitness to practise panel member appointments and staff recruitment, with more appointments from ethnic minority communities and people with disabilities.

Our leadership development programme for ethnic minority social care workers is piloting a programme to address the leadership disparity in social care. This will launch in 2025 to 2026. This has been developed in co-production with people with lived experience so that it’s representative of the communities it’s aiming to support.

Embedding anti-discriminatory practice

Our work with leaders and managers through anti-racism pledges, roadshows, and e-learning resources is helping shift workplace culture. It's enabling us to use our influencing role to start or continue other organisations’ anti-racism journeys to build positive inclusive cultures in social care.

The revised Code of Professional Practice has been developed through consultation with the sector, as well as specific groups. This has led to a stronger focus on anti-discrimination, setting clearer expectations.

Informing future planning

The insights gained this year will directly help shape the development of our next strategic equality plan. The metrics and feedback mechanisms we’ve embedded will make the next plan even more responsive, evidence-led and impactful.

Click here to download and read the full report.

We know that having high quality data is really important for us to measure our progress in achieving our equality objectives. To help us achieve this, we’ve created internal data dashboards using the data we hold about people registered with us. These show us the demographics of the people registered with us, as well as those going through our fitness to practise and hearing processes.

All the data in the dashboards is anonymous.

Our registered person data in April 2025 showed we had 65,301 people registered:

• 6,838 social workers
• 4 adoption service managers
• 1,324 adult care home managers
• 26,986 adult care home workers
• 14 adult placement managers
• 3 children and young people advocacy managers
• 1,057 domiciliary care managers
• 22,818 domiciliary care workers
• 18 fostering service managers
• 437 residential child care managers
• 4,906 residential child care workers
• 4 residential family centre managers
• 81 residential family centre workers
• 807 social work students
• 4 special school residential managers.

Our data about the registered workforce shows us that:

• 76.7 per cent are White
• 12 per cent are Black
• 7.7 per cent are Asian
• 1.7 per cent are mixed ethnicity
• 0.8 per cent are of any other ethnicity
• 78.1 per cent are female
• 21.8 per cent are male
• 2.6 per cent have a disability
• 95.4 per cent don't have a disability
• 88.4 per cent are heterosexual
• 2.2 per cent are bisexual
• 1.5 per cent are lesbian or gay women
• 1 per cent are homosexual or gay men.

The vast majority of people who are registered with us (96.7 per cent) gave us some information about their equal opportunities and this includes people who told us they didn’t want to give us this information. That’s why the figures don’t add up to 100 per cent.

The percentage of those who answered each question varies:

• disability: 95.4 per cent
• sexual orientation: 95.5 per cent
• ethnicity: 95.8 per cent
• gender: 99.9 per cent.

We won’t share any transgender data as the numbers are too small and risk identifying those people.

How representative is the registered social care workforce in comparison to the 2021 Welsh Census data?

Ethnicity:

Our data about the registered workforce shows us that:

• 76.7 per cent are White
• 12 per cent are Black
• 7.7 per cent are Asian
• 1.7 per cent are mixed ethnicity
• 0.8 per cent are of any other ethnicity.

Compared with the 2021 Welsh Census data:

• White: 93.8 per cent
• Asian, Asian Welsh or Asian British: 2.9 per cent
• Mixed or multiple ethnic groups: 1.6 per cent
• Black, Black Welsh, Black British, Caribbean or African: 0.7 per cent
• Other ethnic group: 0.7 per cent.

Gender*:

Our data about the registered workforce shows us that:

• 78.1 per cent are female
• 21.8 per cent are male.

*In 2024 to 2025, on registration and renewal we asked applicants and registered people for a gender. Options on this question, were female, male, non-binary, gender fluid, other and prefer not to say. This will change in 2025 to 2026 to biological sex. We’ll be adding a separate specific question about gender identity.

Compared with the 2021 Welsh Census data:

• female: 51.1 per cent
• male: 48.9 per cent.

Disability:

Our data about the registered workforce shows us that:

• 2.6 per cent have a disability
• 95.4 per cent don't have a disability.

Compared with the 2021 Welsh Census data:

• does not have a disability: 78.9 per cent
• have a disability: 21.1 per cent

Sexual orientation:

Our data about the registered workforce shows us that:

• 88.4 per cent are heterosexual
• 2.2 per cent are bisexual
• 1.5 per cent are lesbian or gay women
• 1 per cent are homosexual or gay men.

Compared with the 2021 Welsh Census data:

• Heterosexual: 89.4 per cent
• Bisexual: 1.2 per cent
• Lesbian/gay men/women: 1.5 per cent
• Other: 0.3 per cent.

We carry out an equality and diversity survey about our staff each year. We ask staff to update their diversity information each June before our annual equality pay audit.

Here’s a summary of our staff diversity as of June 2025:

Sex

• Male: 24 per cent
• Female: 76 per cent

Age

• 18 to 21: 0 per cent
• 22 to 29: 12.55 per cent
• 30 to 39: 29.87 per cent
• 40 to 49: 32.46 per cent
• 50 to 59: 20.34 per cent
• 60 years and over: 4.76 per cent

Disability

• Yes: 7.35 per cent
• No: 32.03 per cent
• Prefer not to answer or not declared: 60.62 per cent

Race

• Any White background: 30.75 per cent
• Any Black and ethnic minority background: 1.29 per cent
• Prefer not to answer or not declared: 67.98 per cent

If you have any feedback about this annual report or want to inform our work to achieve our equality objectives, get in touch with us: edi@socialcare.wales