Equality Duty reporting becomes fragile when recruitment evidence is delayed. If a role is challenged, many councils can only report from the application onwards. That leaves the highest risk stage, the advert itself, outside the record.

Recruiters face a practical problem. They are expected to support fair access, but they often rely on ATS outputs that do not show who engaged before applying. That makes it hard to determine whether a role was promoted in a way that aligned with the authority’s public commitments.

Why do current methods fail? Because they focus on process completion, not attraction evidence. A completed requisition does not prove inclusive reach. A list of posting locations does not prove engagement. When governance asks what happened before shortlisting, the answer is often too thin.

What works better is reporting that captures engagement at the point of attraction. Ethnic Jobsite helps councils evidence the advert stage activity among underrepresented audiences, providing a clearer audit trail than standard application data alone. That improves defensibility because the record starts before candidate selection.

What to do next. Test one current campaign against your Equality Duty wording and check whether your evidence begins early enough to stand up to review.