Equality and Diversity
EQUALITY & DIVERSITY
The Equality Act 2010 has made the legislation around equality simpler.
We want to ensure that we meet the requirements of the Equality Act, not because it is legislation but because it will enable us to meet the needs of our community and treat them fairly. We want to put people at the heart of everything that we do.
Everyone has a right to be treated equally and fairly. We want to treat our customers fairly and provide them with the best services that we can.
EQUALITY OBJECTIVES 2016-2020
We are committed to ensuring that the services we provide are accessible to all and meet different people’s needs. Improving life chances and equality for all is at the heart of what we do and is the starting place for developing our equality objectives.
Our equality objectives for 2016-2020 are:
- To ensure that our data better provides us with the right insight, evidence and intelligence to make well informed decisions that impact our communities
- To place equality at the heart of our decision making process
- To encourage good community relations and active citizenship
- To ensure value for money
EQUALITY ANALYSIS
The Equality Act 2010 Public Sector Single Equality Duty requires public authorities to publish details of the ‘Equality Analysis’ they have undertaken.
Equality Analysis is similar to Equality Impact Assessment, but with more emphasis on demonstrating how we have used information, data and consultation results to inform our decisions, policies and service development.
Equality Analysis and Equality Impact Assessments involve considering the effect on different groups protected from discrimination by the Equality Act, such as people of different ethnicities. This is to check if there are any unintended consequences for some groups, and also if the policy or service will be fully effective for all target groups. It involves using equality information, and the results of engagement with protected groups and others, to understand the actual effect or the potential effect of our functions, policies or decisions. It can help us to identify practical steps to tackle any negative effects or discrimination, to advance equality and to foster good relations.
We have amended our Equality Impact Assessment toolkit to reflect the requirements of the Public Sector Equality duty and to help provide more of a focus on the ‘equality analysis’ element.
WORKFORCE PROFILE
The personal information that we hold on our employees helps us to safeguard our employment practices from discrimination. The information allows us to monitor trends and make changes to policies, practices and procedures where necessary.
The disclosure of sensitive personal information is voluntary, we encourage our staff to disclose equalities information to improve the data that we hold.
Click here to view the Boston Borough Council Equality Profiling Report
