The Hackney Council's Corporate Committee convened on 22 September 2025, approving the Planning Service Authority Monitoring Report, noting the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap 2025 report, and reviewing the Corporate Committee's work programme for 2025/26. The committee also approved the minutes from the previous meeting held on 19 May 2025.

Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report

The Corporate Committee noted the contents of the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap 2025 report¹, which included findings on the local authority's gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and the council's commitment to addressing inequalities.

The report highlighted positive trends, with the gender pay gap remaining in favour of women:

• Mean gender pay gap: -4.53%
• Median gender pay gap: -2.10%

The ethnicity pay gap, however, showed a disparity in favour of white employees:

• Mean ethnicity pay gap: 12.39%
• Median ethnicity pay gap: 10.47%

The report noted that the council is working towards a framework for a Disability Pay Gap report, but needs to improve data quality first.

Councillor Carole Williams, Cabinet Member for Employment, Human Resources and Equalities, stated that promoting a diverse workforce is a longstanding priority for Hackney Council, and that the council is committed to tackling racism and discrimination in all its forms.

The report also detailed the council's activities to support equity amongst the workforce and within the community, including its commitment to anti-racism, and the 2025 staff pulse survey.

The report noted that the government's methodology for gender pay gap reporting uses binary categories (male and female), but that the council recognises other identities in its own workforce reporting, such as non-binary and transgender.

The report included a table showing participation rates in the Local Government Pension Scheme by gender and ethnicity as at 31st March 2025.

Planning Service Authority Monitoring Report (AMR)

The committee approved the Planning Service Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) for April 2023 to March 2024². The AMR provides an overview of planning-related activities, monitors the effectiveness of planning policies, and assesses the extent to which objectives have been achieved.

Key points from the report included:

• Housing: Hackney met 98% of its housing target over the three-year period to 2023. £6.7 million in financial contributions were agreed to support affordable housing. 481 units were completed in the reporting year 2023/24, lower than the previous two years. Factors contributing to the lower delivery included changes to financing, increased costs of materials and labour, and economic uncertainty.
• Employment: There is a large amount of new employment floorspace, mainly offices (99,300sqm), in the planning pipeline, and high levels of growth in businesses within the borough. In 2024, there were 25,725 enterprises in Hackney, up by 795 from 2023, a growth of 3.19%.
• Retail and Town Centres: Hackney has seen growth in retail over the last five years. Hackney Central has been designated a major town centre, Stamford Hill a District Centre, and four new local shopping centres have been designated in the borough.

• Communities, Culture, Education and Health: Planning continues to secure important funding through the Community Infrastructure Levy³ (CIL) and Section 106 agreements⁴ to deliver community benefits. The total amount of money from planning obligations allocated towards infrastructure projects during 2023/24 was £8,790,000.

• Open Spaces, Environment and Climate Change: Hackney has 33 parks and open spaces that have Green Flag status. Improvements to Stoke Newington Common and Charles Square were detailed, which were awarded status in 2024.

• Transport: Hackney has the highest active travel mode share in London. The walking mode share in 2023/24 was 53.4%, and 8.1% of trips were by cycling.

• Design and Heritage: The number of buildings on the at-risk register has remained at 34 in 2023.

• Planning Performance: Major targets in planning performance were met and exceeded in FY2023/24. Hackney served the 8th most enforcement notices of all local planning authorities in England.

Corporate Committee Work Programme 2025/26

The committee noted the latest draft of their work programme for the 2025/26 municipal year.