Acas equality information report 2024 to 2025

The Equality Act 2010 requires relevant public bodies, including Acas, to publish information to show how they comply with the public sector equality duty. This ties in with the equality objectives we publish at least every 4 years.

To understand, produce, measure and ultimately achieve our objectives, we produce an equality information report.

Although the Equality Act has 9 protected characteristics, due to the size of our workforce we limit our focus on age, disability, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. This is for the purpose of measuring and confidentiality.

We only collect and measure data where there could reasonably be a clear plan to make use of the data being collected to promote equality between the protected characteristics.

The report covers the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Under the Equality Act 2010, public authorities such as Acas must meet the public sector equality duty. They must have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other unlawful conduct prohibited by the act
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share and people who do not share a relevant protected characteristic
• foster good relations between people who share and people who do not share a relevant protected characteristic

We do this by looking at employees' needs across our services.

We are experts in promoting diversity and inclusion outside our organisation through our training and advice services. We will do more to promote diversity and inclusion internally, as well as making sure that our services are accessible to all. We are held to account through Ambition 4, a key strand in our strategy focusing on 'embracing difference, increasing inclusion, creating fairness'.

The Ambition 4 objectives are that, by 2025, we will:

• influence the state of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, through our services and in partnership with organisations across Britain
• provide services that are accessible and effective for those who need to use them, irrespective of place, sector, and individual circumstances
• be an organisation that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve

We are on track to deliver on all our Ambition 4 success measures by the end of our strategy in 2025.

Our Ambition 4 focus in 2024 to 2025 included:

• completing a definitive, comprehensive series of guidance on protected characteristics – giving employers and employees comprehensive and accessible guidance on key discrimination issues, which can often drive disputes
• publishing Disability Discrimination in the Workplace in 2024, taking a deeper dive into the issues that employers can find most complex to resolve
• publishing Neurodiversity at Work in 2025, providing employers with practical insights to create fairer, more supportive workplaces for all – this campaign, our most successful ever, drove an increase of over 150% in website traffic, 460,000 views of our videos and sold-out training events
• carrying out an accessibility framework review through the Disability Business Forum, which received an overall score of 74% against the standard (which is considered excellent) – we performed particularly strongly in the areas of procurement and workplace adjustments
• creating an action plan to fill gaps identified in the accessibility framework review, with a focus on customer accessibility and disability awareness – the action plan was rolled out and all milestones completed
• continuing to use targeted recruitment methods, virtual events for large recruitment campaigns and improving hiring manager capability to attract diverse candidates with the right skills to raise our profile as an inclusive employer – this has seen us sustain the significant increase we had in 2022 to 2023 in attracting ethnic minority candidates and an increase in the conversion of ethnic minority candidates from sift to interview

At Acas, we continue to be committed to creating and maintaining a non-discriminatory and respectful working environment for our staff. A range of policies support this, such as bullying and harassment, diversity and inclusion and recruitment and selection. These are available on our staff intranet in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). In order to fulfil the new duty to take 'all reasonable steps' to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, we have:

• written a stand-alone sexual harassment policy
• carried out an organisational risk assessment
• trained the Executive Board, Senior Leadership Team, Networks, Fair Treatment Contacts and others in key roles on 'sexual harassment awareness'

Sexual harassment training covered what sexual harassment is, how to speak up and where to access help and support.

We have also relaunched our Fair Treatment Contacts, with representation in all directorates. This ensures employees know where to go for help, support and signposting.

During National Inclusion Week in September 2024, we continued to raise awareness of diversity, inclusion and accessibility good practice and shared lived experience through our National Inclusion Weeks. We were also supported by our 4 networks:

• Women's Network
• Race Network
• LGBTI+ and Allies Network
• Disability and You Network

National Inclusion Week was attended by 283 people over 3 weeks – 34 staff (including those in our networks) helped plan, facilitate or deliver sessions focusing on neurodiversity, accessibility, inclusion and mental health. We saw high levels of attendance from across all areas of Acas.

We continue to pro-actively support staff with their health and wellbeing through training, support and regular wellbeing articles. These reduce stigma, raise awareness, and create an environment where staff feel safe to speak up about health and wellbeing. We used the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) tool to measure the perceptions and attitudes of the workforce around aspects of work known to be related with work-related stress. 56% of the organisation completed it. Results were used to inform the: 

• mental health and wellbeing plan
• people and culture strategy
• organisational risk assessment

Individual actions for directorates were taken forward by HR Business partners alongside actions from the People Survey.

We also offered employees the opportunity to have a free flu vaccine – 108 employees took up this offer.

Finally, we used the organisational cultural assessment tool to define what is important to us about the culture at Acas. We ran workshops across England, Scotland and Wales with our staff to co-create our desired culture. Four cultural pillars have been launched: 

• Customer Centric
• Collaborative
• Empowered
• Adaptable 

These will form the bedrock of our new People and Culture Strategy.

The equality and diversity figures in this report are based on a headcount total of 1,076 members of staff on 31 March 2025. They are taken from Acas's iTrent system, unless otherwise stated. Staff on loan and not paid directly by Acas are not included in the analysis, nor are agency staff or contractors.

Latest figures show that:

• 60% of our employees are women
• 10% are ethnic minorities
• 19% are disabled
• 6% identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual

The representation of ethnic minority employees is lower than the wider working population of 17.4%, while the representation of disabled employees is above the working population of 18.1%. Our representation for gay, lesbian or bisexual employees is slightly below the civil service representation of 6.4%.

Declaration

The data in this section shows Acas's workforce by grade as of 31 March 2025.

Age

The age demographics at Acas remain relatively stable, with a small increase of younger employees. The majority of employees are aged between 30 and 60 years of age.

Grades 8 and 9 have seen an increase in employees under the age of 40, with a slight increase in those aged 60 to 64.

The percentage of those aged 65 or over remains the same.

Disability

The overall percentage of employees that shared their disability status as disabled, not disabled or prefer not to say was 64%. This is a decrease of 2 percentage points from the 2023 to 2024 declaration.

Representation of disabled employees is mainly evenly spread across grades – with the lowest representation in grade 11. Due to the small numbers of grade 6s and senior civil servants (SCS), we have amalgamated the data for confidentiality reasons.

Senior civil service and grade 6 disability representation increased by 8 percentage points from 2024 to 2026. The percentage of staff who are disabled across the whole of Acas has decreased 1 percentage point to 19% of the workforce. This is because representation of disabled employees has decreased in grades 9 to 11, which have higher numbers of staff. 

Ethnicity

Our ethnic minority representation has stayed the same at 10% of the workforce. However, it has decreased 2 percentage points for senior civil servants, grade 6 and 7. These are amalgamated due to small numbers, to ensure confidentiality. There is a 4-percentage point increase in ethnic minority representation in grade 11, which is our lowest grade.

Sex

60% of Acas employees are female. The percentage of women in the senior civil service has decreased from 57% to 43%, which is 14 percentage points. However, due to small numbers, this represents one person. In grade 6, female representation has decreased from 69% to 58% – again this represents one person, due to the small numbers. We have seen an increase in women in grade 8.

Sexual orientation

Because of numbers and confidentiality reasons, data for sexual orientation in some grades has been amalgamated. Overall representation has remained static at 6%, with significant increases in the higher grades.

From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 there were 7,761 applications for vacancies.

Age

When people apply for a job, Acas asks them for their age using 10 age brackets ranging from 16 to 24 to 65+. It also allows the option of 'prefer not to say', although 95% of applicants chose to share this data with us. In every age bracket we received applications and appointed candidates. Candidates aged between 25 to 29 made up the largest group of applications at 20.5%. Candidates aged 30 to 34 had the biggest success rate at the interview stage with 18.5%.

Disability

Candidates who shared that they had a disability represented 15.5% of applications. They went on to represent 17.5% of successful candidates at sift stage and 19% of those successful at interview. This is an increase from the 17.6% who were successful at the interview stage in 2023 to 2024.

Ethnicity

The data shows that the total number of applications were made up of:

• 21% Asian and Asian British candidates, a rise of 1 percentage point from 2023 to 2024
• 20% black African, black Caribbean, and black British candidates, a rise of 4 percentage points from 2023 to 2024
• 3% candidates from a mixed ethnicity group
• 48% from a white ethnicity group

At sift stage the successful group was made up of:

• 16% from Asian or Asian British ethnicity group
• 16% from black African, black Caribbean, and black British ethnicity
• 3% from a mixed ethnicity group
• 58% from a white ethnicity

Successful candidates at interview stage shows us a make-up of:

• 11% from Asian and Asian British ethnicity
• 10% from black African, black Caribbean, and black British ethnicity
• 3% from a mixed ethnicity group
• 70% from a white ethnicity

Percentages for ethnicity in recruitment may not add up to 100% as some candidates preferred not to share their ethnicity.

Gender

The data shows that the total number of applications were made up of:

• 52% – women
• 43% – men
• 5% – a combination of those who wanted to self‑describe and those not wanting to share gender

At sift stage the successful group was made up of:

• 57% – women
• 40% – men
• 5% – those who self-describe or prefer not to share

At interview stage the successful group was made up of:

• 62% – women
• 33% – men
• 5% – those who self-describe or prefer not to share

Sexual orientation

Because of small numbers and confidentiality those candidates who do not identify as heterosexual will be identified for the purposes of this information as LGBTI+.

The data shows that the total number of applications were made up of:

• 81% of those who described themselves as heterosexual
• 19% of those who identified as LGBTI+ (including self-described, preferred not to share or omitted to share data)

At sift stage the successful group was made up of:

• 78% heterosexual
• 22% LGBTI+ (including self-described, preferred not to share or omitted to share data)

At interview stage the successful group was made up of:

• 77% heterosexual candidates
• 23% LGBTI+ candidates (including self-described, preferred not to share or omitted to share data)

The data analysis presented here shows the reasons why employees left during the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

The overall data shows that:

• there were 3 main reasons for leaving – transfer to another government department 16%, resignation 43% and retirement 32%
• those who transferred to another government department were all aged between 20 and 49, with 52% aged 30 to 39
• those who resigned and left due to 'another reason' were aged between 20 and 59, with 56% aged 30 to 39
• those who retired were all over 40
• 5% of employees were dismissed – the same percentages as 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024

Reasons for leaving by protected characteristic

Sex

The data shows that:

• 59% of employees leaving Acas were female
• women were more likely to leave for retirement – 74% of those who retired were female
• women were more likely to move to another government department – 69% of movers were female

Ethnicity

The data shows that:

• 13% of leavers were ethnic minorities
• 6% of employees who transferred to another government department were from ethnic minorities
• 19% of employees who resigned were from ethnic minorities
• 13% of employees who retired were from ethnic minorities
• none of the employees who were dismissed disclosed they were an ethnic minority – however, of the 5% of leavers leaving due to dismissal, 60% had not shared their ethnicity status

Disability

The data shows that:

• 18% of employees leaving Acas in 2024 to 2025 had a disability, compared to 20% of those in post
• 32% of employees who retired had a disability
• 6% of employees who transferred to another government department had a disability
• 20% of employees who were dismissed had a disability  

LGBTI+

The data shows that:

• 13% of employees who identified as LGBTI+ left Acas in 2023 to 2024
• 5% of those who resigned identified as LGBTI+
• 6% of employees transferring to another government department identified as LGBTI+

An assessment of performance data available showed that less than 1% of staff did not demonstrate the standards for their role. Therefore, due to confidentiality we are not reporting on this data.

The data shows that:

• 87% of women were awarded a bonus
• 85% of men were awarded a bonus
• 90% of staff declaring a disability were awarded a bonus
• 93% of LGBTI+ staff were awarded a bonus
• 81% of ethnic minority staff were awarded a bonus

During the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 there were 14 formal grievances raised with 6 different subject areas. Informal grievances are dealt with by management within the directorate and not recorded centrally. There were also a small number of disciplinaries during this period made up of several different protected characteristics.

The following tables show the percentage of employees with different protected characteristics who have raised a grievance.

Reasons for grievances (combined)

Reasons were:

• discrimination, disability discrimination or failure to implement reasonable adjustment
• payment decisions
• bullying and harassment, unfavourable treatment or inappropriate behaviours
• workplace decisions
• race discrimination

The results for engagement, discrimination, bullying and harassment are taken from the Civil Service People Survey conducted annually over September and October. These results are from the People Survey for 2024.

At the end of the survey, staff are asked to complete a diversity monitoring form, which is voluntary. Not all who complete the survey fill in the monitoring information at the end. Questions within the diversity monitoring form are optional. Therefore, for those who chose to fill in the survey, not all questions were answered.

From the data available, table 13 shows the engagement index scores.

The engagement score is based on 5 questions asking if employees:

• are proud to work at Acas
• would recommend working here to others
• are motivated and inspired
• have a strong personal attachment to the organisation

The overall engagement score for Acas is 63% – up 1% from 2023. The engagement scores for those with different protected characteristics are lowest for those who have a disability (risen 2%) or are LGB+ (down 5%). The highest engagement scores are from women and ethnic minorities. This is the same pattern as last year and the scores are similar.

The People Survey measures inclusion – this covers respect for individuals within their teams, respect for individual differences within the organisation and being treated fairly at work. This remains at 77%, with no change from last year.  

The survey results show discrimination has risen 1 percentage point to 9% and bullying and harassment has stayed static at 8%.

Read the Acas gender pay gap report 2025

Read the Acas ethnicity pay gap report 2025