Corporate report

Mining Remediation Authority: Everyday inclusion plan 2025 to 2028

Published 15 September 2025

1. Who we are

The Mining Remediation Authority is a 24/7/365 emergency response organisation who protect life, drinking water and the environment from the legacy of mining.

We have colleagues across Great Britain ready to respond and take action to keep people safe and provide peace of mind.

Extensive coalfields exist across Great Britain and roughly 25% of homes and businesses across Great Britain are located above former coal mines.

The vast majority of people will never experience any problems from that, but for those who do we are here to provide support and expertise.

So much of Great Britain’s history has been shaped by the natural minerals under our soil. None more than coal, which has provided heat, steam and power for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Coal was nationalised in 1947, which is why the UK government owns the majority of underground workings and remaining coal reserves under England, Scotland and Wales, along with the responsibility for many of the associated challenges and hazards.

As domestic coal mining has reduced and humanity recognises the impacts of burning carbon on our climate, we are seeking alternative ways to maximise low-carbon opportunities from closed and abandoned mines, such as mine water heat networks.

These provide clean heat for homes and businesses, and benefit communities whose identity was built from coal and who can now benefit from low carbon, social and economic benefits from the warm water in the historical mining assets.

We work with partners, communities and customers to listen, learn and take practical action together to make a better future for people and the environment in mining areas and to enable safe growth, economic development and community benefit.

This includes using our expertise to provide services which remediate pollution and manage risk from other types of mining and contamination.

The Mining Remediation Authority is a non-departmental public body and partner organisation of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

2. Foreword

Written by:

• David Brookes – Chair of the People and Remuneration Committee

• Richard Bond – Innovation and Services Director

• Victoria Slingsby – People and Engagement Director

We are pleased to share our everyday inclusion plan for 2025 to 2027. This builds on our successful delivery of the priorities of our 2021 to 2024 diversity and inclusion plan and our 2022 to 2025 anti-racism plan. 

It details how we will work together over the next 3 years to continue making demonstrable progress in recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, reflective of the communities we serve across Great Britain, improving social mobility and providing opportunities for individuals who live in mining communities. 

This plan has been developed with the priorities outlined in our business plan 2025 to 2028 and our customer plan 2023 to 2026, recognising that everyday inclusion is an important factor across all aspects of the business.  

We are a practical operational organisation and focus on using our technical expertise and professionalism to keep coalfield communities and environments safe. 

We recognise that our passionate and dedicated colleagues are at the heart of the organisation and remain critical to the delivery of this plan and to ensuring we provide our services effectively and with empathy.

Over the past 4 years we have continued to celebrate difference, focusing on attracting and recruiting diverse talent and minimising any potential for bias and complication in our processes.

We’ve grown our culture of belonging, promoting inclusive engagement opportunities with colleagues and customers, ensuring everyone has a voice. 

We have also focused on priorities which develop understanding of customer needs and the expectations of the services we can provide. However, we know that there is always more we can do.

The priorities outlined in this plan demonstrate that everyday inclusion is vital to our daily operations as it impacts our people, our workplaces, our services and our partnerships. 

Everyday inclusion delivers the views of a wide range of people from a full variety of backgrounds; it offers the scope for our people to gain greater satisfaction in the workplace; and directly effects the impact our work has on the local community.

We are proud that everyday inclusion is something we strive to deliver through the values of the Mining Remediation Authority and our colleagues.

It is not just a series of courses and awareness sessions but how we aim to operate day in and day out and this new plan develops the range of guiding principles and priorities that allows us to keep a check on itself and its progress.

Everyone is different, requiring varying degrees of help and support. We recognise that individuality within the Mining Remediation Authority and the need for a range of measures that are flexible to allow everyone to flourish and to be settled in their role.

The historical mining areas have always been built on community and have a rich heritage.

Our colleagues tell us regularly that they want everyone to feel part of that community and to appreciate that heritage, while also ensuring the continued safety for those communities and seeking opportunities to create growth and local value from the legacy assets.

This plan demonstrates our continued commitment to integrate and embed inclusivity in our day to day lives.

It’s a journey that we will continue to share with our colleagues and our communities and a journey that will deliver better results for everyone.

We thank everyone who has contributed to the development of this plan and we look forward to working together to deliver it.

3. Our mission, purpose and values

Our mission, purpose and values were developed with our colleagues and input from partners and adopted by the board in April 2019.

These were revisited as part of our vision and business plan development in 2022 and the board reviewed and agreed that they remain relevant and at the heart of our work and approach for this next period.

3.1 Our mission

Making a better future for people and the environment in mining areas.

3.2 Our purpose

• we keep people safe and provide peace of mind
• we protect and enhance the environment
• we use our information and expertise to help people make informed decisions
• we create value and minimise cost to the taxpayer

3.3 Our values

Trusted

• we act with integrity
• we are open and transparent
• we deliver on our commitments

Inclusive

• we promote a culture of mutual respect
• we recognise that our differences make us stronger
• we work with others to achieve our mission

Progressive

• we are open minded and innovative
• we recognise that the past can help us shape the future
• we listen and learn

4. Our everyday inclusion priorities

Our business plan and 10-year vision outline our ambition to become a diverse, representative, and actively antiracist organisation that delivers inclusive and accessible services to the communities we serve. 

Everyday inclusion is central to our success in delivering exceptional services, ensuring the safety of our communities and in providing protection of the environment.

Our inclusion priorities underpin everything we do. These priorities are designed to enable us to continue to focus on our people, creating a diverse and representative workforce, while aligning with our service delivery priorities in how we work with our customers, communities, and our partnerships with others.

Our priorities are focused on continuing to embed and enhance the great progress we’ve made in building a diverse and representative workforce and creating inclusive, accessible workplaces.

We are committed to strengthening everyday inclusion through delivery of our services and partnerships to support the evolving needs and priorities of our communities and the environment.

4.1 Our people – we are representative of the communities we serve

To perform at our best, we need talented people and a diverse workforce that brings a blend of technical skills, fresh perspectives, and lived experience.

This enables us to take practical action on the ground while remaining innovative and effective in how we deliver.

4.2 Our workplaces – we create a great place to work for everyone

Inclusive, accessible workplaces support our colleagues to thrive – enabling creativity, collaboration, and resilience.

By creating an environment where everyone feels safe, valued and able to contribute, we build a strong foundation for individual wellbeing, career growth and long-term commitment.

4.3 Our services – we deliver inclusive services for the communities we serve

Everyday inclusion guides how we engage with customers and communities.

By listening and responding to diverse needs, we build trust and deliver meaningful services shaped by our colleagues’ cultural insights and lived experience.

4.4 Our partnerships – we promote inclusion when working with others to create value

Through inclusive partnerships, we aim to collaborate effectively with others to achieve shared goals that create lasting impact.

5. Our people – we will be representative of the communities we serve

To keep people safe and protect our environment we need to be an efficient, innovative, and high-performing organisation.

A diverse and talented workforce that encourages fresh thinking and new perspectives is central to achieving our mission.

When our people feel genuinely valued and supported in their professional development, they’re are more engaged, collaborative, and motivated.

This cultivates a culture of excellence that enables us to consistently perform at the highest standard.

As an employer of choice, we aim to continue to attract, develop, and support diverse talent that embodies our values.

We are committed to creating an equitable, inclusive culture where everyone feels a sense of belonging and can be their best. 

We want everyone to take real pride in delivering the essential and complex work we do for the communities we serve, regardless of background or identity.

We attract and retain great people to ensure we can effectively and efficiently deliver our essential work to protect life, protect drinking water and protect the environment across Great Britain.

To do this well we need a diverse workforce who feel valued for their range of technical skills, experience and new perspectives. 

This will ensure we can keep taking practical action on the ground and remain innovative and effective in finding new and better ways to deliver.

We will continue to:

• build an inclusive culture, where every individual is welcomed, valued, and feels empowered to bring their authentic selves to work and make meaningful contributions
• make our hiring processes simpler and more inclusive to attract and retain candidates from diverse backgrounds, especially those who face challenges in finding employment
• improve social mobility and provide opportunities for individuals who live in our mining communities. Support our colleague engagement networks, enabling them to thrive
• promote our inclusive feedback mechanisms for all colleagues to voice their opinions and create a diverse and psychologically safe workplace

6. Case study 1: our diversity and engagement

We are committed to being an employer of choice and to building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve across Great Britain.

We’re proud that our focus on inclusivity and creating a supportive workplace is helping to attract a broader range of talent, while also creating an environment where more colleagues feel safe and empowered to share aspects of their identity.

Currently, 85% of our colleagues live in the mining communities we serve, deepening our local connection and strengthening community representation.

We’ve seen meaningful shifts in the diversity of our workforce since 2021 (data as of April 2025):

• disabled colleagues: from 2% in 2021 to 14% in 2025
• ethnically diverse colleagues: from 1% in 2021 to 6.5% in 2025
• LGBT+ colleagues: from 2% in 2021 to 5% in 2025
• women: from 41% in 2021 to 43% in 2025

These changes reflect both the impact of our inclusive practices and an increase in colleagues feeling confident to share their data.

The quality of our insights has significantly improved, with 100% of colleagues now having completed their diversity data.

Through our 2024 people survey, we also gained valuable insights into how colleagues feel about their experience at work – these continue to shape how we build a culture of inclusion, trust and belonging.

Our employee engagement score has risen from 67% in 2021 to 75% in 2024.

Additionally, 91% of our colleagues feel our organisation encourages respect for each other’s differences, and 87% believe we promote a culture of mutual respect.

7. Our workplace – we create a great place to work for everyone

Our approach enables us to work more efficiently, make better-informed decisions, and drive innovation.

Inclusion plays a vital role in supporting colleague wellbeing; when people feel a genuine sense of belonging, collaboration strengthens, productivity increases, and staff turnover decreases – all of which contributes to building a resilient, future-ready workforce.

We are committed to creating accessible workplaces by ensuring our facilities, policies, and practices are inclusive by design. 

This helps break down barriers and provides opportunities for everyone to effectively deliver essential work for mining communities across Great Britain.

Creating inclusive and accessible workplaces isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s essential for delivering creative, effective and efficient solutions for the communities we serve and the taxpayer.

As an organisation, we are continually evolving to identify and remove barriers, designing environments that support the diverse needs of all our people.

Inclusive practices also deepen our understanding of the communities we serve, helping us respond with greater empathy, build trust, and deliver better customer service.

We will continue to:

• embed inclusion throughout all policies, procedures and processes to ensure all colleagues are treated equitably and have equal access to opportunities, actively engaging with our networks to inform our approach
• support colleagues in maintaining a healthy work-life balance by offering flexible working hours, remote work options, and wellbeing programs
• harness new technology and champion digital inclusion to remove barriers, improve accessibility and create a workplace experience that enables equality, engagement and innovation
• prioritise the health, safety, and wellbeing of our colleagues, ensuring a safe workplace both mentally and physically, where everyone can be themselves and work effectively

8. Case study 2: closing our pay gaps

Over the past seven years, we’ve been analysing and reporting on our gender pay gap, taking proactive steps to address gender inequality.

While our gender pay gap is influenced historically by a higher number of men in senior leadership and technical roles – reflecting our legacy in the mining industry – we have made significant progress in shifting this balance.

Since 2018, we’ve reduced our gender pay gap by 19.83 percentage points.

We’re committed to creating a more gender-balanced workforce by promoting gender equality through inclusive policies and practices.

Our focus includes building a family-friendly and wellbeing-focused workplace, ensuring fair and equitable development opportunities for all, and addressing the factors that impact women in the workplace to help them perform at their best.

Mean and median gender pay gap 2018 to 2025

	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Mean	28.28%	21.91%	19.97%	19.93%	15.97%	17.97%	16.34%	8.45%
Median	31.63%	31.49%	26.49%	26.21%	17.43%	16.08%	16.14%	8.33%

In addition to reporting our gender pay gap, we have voluntarily reported pay gaps related to ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation for the past five years.

Transparency in these areas is crucial to us, as it enables us to identify disparities and take informed actions to drive meaningful change.

View our latest pay gap report

9. Our services – we deliver inclusive services for the communities we serve

Ensuring our services address the diverse needs of our customers enables us to keep people safe, deliver our frontline services efficiently and effectively and be easier to do business with.

This approach not only improves the quality of life for those in mining areas, but also builds trust and collaboration, improving environmental protection.

We are committed to delivering our essential 24/7/365 emergency response and frontline services inclusively, as we strive to protect life, drinking water and the environment from historic mining legacy.

We will continue to keep our customers and communities at the heart of everything that we do, treating customers with empathy and as individuals and recognising the different contexts and needs of different communities.

We continue to use insights from our understanding of customers and communities to provide accessible, inclusive services.

We will:

• ensure all our customer and community engagement activities are accessible and inclusive, enabling everyone to access and benefit from our services
• strengthen engagement with diverse communities by further embedding inclusion into our approach to stakeholder engagement, public consultation and emergency response capabilities
• continue to improve our use of data, technology and community insights to understand the diverse needs of our customer and communities
• ensure our engagement is inclusive and the stories we share reflect the diversity of our customer and communities
• ensure inclusion remains a key consideration of our plans to improve public access to our land, our assets and property

10. Our partnerships – we promote inclusion when working with others to create value

Our commitment to inclusion when working with others demonstrates the importance of diversity and fairness in every aspect of our operations.

By nurturing partnerships that prioritise inclusion and social value, we help create more dynamic, innovative, and socially responsible ways of working.

This approach not only meets our legal obligations but also enhances our reputation and strengthens the impact we make together.

We work with others to promote inclusion and increase social value through our procurement and supply chain activities, partnerships and contracts.

We will encourage others to embed social value in their operations, ensuring our communities can access these benefits; our goal is to make all opportunities inclusive and accessible.

Our approach helps us build stronger relationships with partners and local organisations – enabling more effective collaboration, maximising outcomes, and supporting efforts to improve social value and tackle economic inequality.

We are working to ensure that our procurement, supply chain activities, partnerships, and contracts actively promote inclusion and extend social value across a wider platform.

We will:

• increase supplier diversity and inclusive sourcing throughout our supply chain through exploring options to include standardised inclusion requirements in the supplier questionnaire
• embed inclusion based social value questions throughout relevant procurement activities through the application of Social Value Model Theme 4 to achieve results across our supply chain
• include focus on Diversity and Inclusion within our Sustainable Procurement Policy and Supplier Code of Conduct
• report on all added value diversity and inclusion commitments within our awarded contracts
• conduct regular audits and assessments of suppliers and partners to ensure compliance with equality, diversity and inclusion standards and social value commitments

11. Our antiracism priorities 2025 to 2028

We are proud to be an inclusive employer where colleagues from all backgrounds feel empowered to bring their whole selves to work.

As we continue to grow and learn as an organisation, we remain committed to reflecting the rich diversity of the UK, particularly in relation to race and ethnicity.

Our anti-racism priorities are an integral part of our wider everyday inclusion plan.

We are committed to building an actively antiracist organisation, making sustainable and long-term changes to address racial inequality.

We aim to recognise racism and racial inequality, enabling us to break down barriers within our workplace to make it truly inclusive and representative of the communities we serve. 

We will actively challenge discrimination and prioritise equality in everything we do.

We will continue to:

Create an inclusive culture 

Create an equitable and inclusive workplace culture that actively promotes racial equality.

Strengthen our engagement

Strengthen how we listen to and engage with colleagues on race equality and take proactive steps in response to feedback and concerns.

Build our education and understanding

Continue to build our collective understanding of racial inequality, racism, and their impact.

Increase diversity and representation

Continue to increase ethnic diversity at all levels of our organisation and create opportunities for development.

Embed decision making and accountability

Continue to embed inclusion and anti-racist principles into our decisions, policies, and processes.

Read more about our antiracism priorities and how we’re putting them into action

12. How we’ll know we’re succeeding

Everyday inclusion is central to our success in delivering exceptional services and ensuring the safety of our communities and protection of the environment.

We can use success measures to track and demonstrate we are being inclusive across all our work, these include:

• increased colleague engagement scores related to inclusion, respect at work and colleague experience in our people surveys
• growth in the diversity of applicants and new recruits, particularly from underrepresented or disadvantaged groups
• increased number of new recruits, apprenticeships, or internships filled by individuals from local mining communities
• equality impact assessments consistently applied to key policies, projects, and decisions across the organisation, with findings used to identify and mitigate potential inequalities, and to inform inclusive design and delivery
• improved understanding of customer and community needs
• increased representation of diverse voices in stakeholder engagement and public consultations
• inclusion-based procurement criteria applied, where relevant, throughout new contracts that achieve measurable commitments from suppliers reported on alongside social value achievements

13. Inclusion strategy 2021 to 2024: our achievements

Our previous equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2021 to 2024 laid the foundation for a more inclusive and supportive workplace.

Guided by our commitment to celebrating difference, creating a culture of belonging, and ensuring fairness for all, it helped embed inclusion across our customer-focused organisation.

You can read more about our progress and key achievements in our progress report and annual report and accounts.

13.1 Celebrating difference

Introducing a guaranteed interview scheme for ethnically diverse candidates, in addition to our scheme for disabled candidates.

Delivering ‘ready to recruit’ training to all our hiring managers to help ensure our recruitment processes are fair, unbiased and inclusive scheme for disabled candidates.

13.2 Creating a culture of belonging

Delivering our ‘pathway to inclusion’ training programme to enhance our workplace culture, empower colleagues, and ensure our success as both an employer and a community service provider.

Becoming a more menopause inclusive workplace by signing the Workplace Menopause Pledge, introducing a menopause policy, establishing regular menopause cafes and providing free period products.

13.3 Ensuring everyone is treated equally

Reviewing our family friendly policies to ensure that what we offer is in line with the best available in the public sector.

Improving our diversity data collection, achieving 100% participation from colleagues, helping us tailor support, addressing pay gaps, and removing barriers to recruitment, retention and progression.

13.4 Improving our customer service

Achieving ServiceMark accreditation from the Institute of Customer Service. 

Delivering training to help colleagues manage challenging situations and deliver the best possible customer service.