Executive Summary - Staff Monitoring Report 2021/22

  • Age: The average age of our staff population is 49.7 years. The 46–55 age group is the largest age group accounting for 27.4% of all OU staff, who are mostly academic staff. The 25 and under age group is the only age group with a percentage change decrease from the previous year (2020/21). All other age group populations have increased, the 26-35 age group has the largest increase (16% increase from 2020/21), while the 46-55 has the lowest increase (7% increase from 2020/21).
  • Disability: The proportion of staff with a disability has risen to 7.9%, breaking a four-year falling trend in disability representation since 2017/18. Disabled staff represent 4.9% of the senior staff population, the highest representation since 2017/18. The majority of staff with disabilities are in the Associate Lecturer employee subgroup, while the lowest representation is among Research Staff. The current disclosure rate (proportion of staff declaring ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to disability status) is 97.4%.
  • Ethnicity: the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff continues to rise and is now at 11%, the highest representation since 2017/18. Similarly, the representation at senior level has steadily increased and is also at 11%, led largely by minority ethnic staff in professor grades (15%). Minority ethnic colleagues are underrepresented in SS grades and only make up 6% of the SS0-SS5 band population. Black staff are the least represented ethnicity subgroup at senior level, particularly in professor grades accounting for less than 1%. Three of the four minority ethnic subgroups are below equality scheme targets. One in four (26.4%) Research staff are from minority ethnic backgrounds, the largest representation of minority ethnic staff compared to all other employee subgroups. In contrast, the lowest representation is at the Associate Lecturer level where minority ethnic staff make up 7% of the population.The majority of non-EU colleagues are from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds (57%).
  • Religion: Amongst 83% of staff who declared their religion or belief by July 2022, 43% reported no religion or belief while 12.5% said ‘prefer not to say’. Among those who declared a religion or belief, a third (31%) said they were Christian, while members of all other faiths represented 8.7% of all staff. There has been little change over the past 5 two years.
  • Sex: the representation of women at senior level continues to increase for the 5th consecutive year with women accounting for 47.9% of the senior staff population in 2021/22, remaining above our equity scheme minimum representation target of 45% women at senior level. Despite making up 59% of academic staff, women are still underrepresented in professorial bands, particularly in PB2, accounting for 40.5% of the professor grades. Women are overrepresented in Regional Academic contracts (also known as Staff Tutors) accounting for 74.2% (slight increase from 73% in 2020/21). In contrast, women are underrepresented among research staff, making up 43.2% (increased from 42% in 2020/21). A total of 237 women have taken maternity leave and almost all (95%) women who have returned from maternity leave have stayed on and continue to work at the OU.
  • Sexual Orientation: LGB+ colleagues make up 4.6% of the OU population. As of July 2022, 17% chose to ‘prefer not to say’ and 8.5% of data is missing (no data available), making the total disclosure rate 75%- the lowest across all protected characteristics. The highest representation of LGB+ colleagues is among the Research Staff population (7.4%) while the lowest representation is among the Academic-related staff group (3.9%). Data from Associate Lecturer is not available for previous years.
  • Recruitment: Data shows candidates from marginalised communities and backgrounds progress differently across the recruitment pipeline (shortlisting > interviewing > appointment) compared to non-marginalised groups. The data looks at proportional progression of each individual group as opposed to diversity at each stage of the recruitment pipeline as this approach takes into account the weight of each population, allowing us to make comparisons between groups