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Council Our Strategies, plans and policies Strategies and Plans Corporate Equality Scheme Equalities Scheme Leaflet
Council Our Strategies, plans and policies Strategies and Plans Corporate Equality Scheme Equalities Scheme Leaflet
Equalities Scheme Leaflet
Achieving Accessibility, Equality and Diversity 2011 - 2015
Our equality priorities and key areas of improvement
Build Equality into How We Commission, Procure and Deliver Services
Commissioning and Procurement
- We will strengthen our equality procurement framework so that suppliers can demonstrate their commitment to equality and explore training for suppliers as necessary
- We will endeavour to have greater consideration of cultural diversity when commissioning new services
- We will identify the equality profile of organisations that supply services for us and aim to ensure they reflect the communities we serve
- We will engage with our customers and other stakeholders to determine that their service requirements are met through effective commissioning and value for money procurement.
Delivering Services
- We will provide our services through a variety of means; face to face, electronic, phone or written letter depending on customer need
- We will continue to improve the accessibility of our services
- We will respond to our customers' needs in accordance with agreed service standards
- We will aim to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction with our services
- We will treat all of our customers with respect by being polite, welcoming and courteous
- We will monitor the effectiveness of the information, advice and guidance given by our front line services (such as housing services, housing benefits and planning) to ensure they reach community groups
- We will monitor the effectiveness of our "do it online services" and ensure that they reach community groups
- We will ensure that disabled and older peoples access to public transport will be considered as part of any future regeneration proposals.
Promoting Equality as a Local Employer
Workforce Diversity
- We will address gaps in our knowledge base to ensure that we are prioritising key equality areas in our work
- We will enhance our monitoring and analysis systems to improve data collection, particularly around equality issues
- We will encourage the diversity of our staff to reflect the communities we serve across all the equality areas and will continue to monitor our workforce profile
- We will promote a workplace environment where all our staff are treated with dignity and respect
- We will continue to improve accessibility of our working practices and buildings.
Equal Pay Gap
- We will continue to implement the proposed changes set out in the pay and reward strategy which address the issues identified in the equal pay audit.
Workforce training
- We will ensure that monitoring arrangements are in place to review access to and evaluation of training for each protected characteristic and identify whether there are any potential areas for action
- We will continue to provide our staff with relevant on going training and development on equality and diversity issues.
Workforce disciplinary and grievance procedures
- We will develop our monitoring systems to capture the protected characteristics of the individuals raising a grievance.
Improving Local Engagement
- We will develop a robust and accessible communications strategy
- We will start to develop performance indicators at the start of each of our campaigns that clearly identifies the audiences we are trying to reach, recognising that different communication approaches are required to reach different groups
- We will sample a selection of our publications and quality assure them against our branding guidelines, which make specific reference to positive images
- We will endeavour to check more of our publications to ensure consistent definitions and easy to understand language (less public sector jargon)
- We will also do further work on our website front page, develop web information for definitions and contacts and do more to promote the availability of other formats.
Customer Service Centre
- We will resolve as many enquiries as possible at the first contact, ensuring completion of those requests which are handed over to departments, partners or external contractors
- We will improve the quality of monitoring data around the profile of callers to our Customer Services Centre
- We will explore the contact routes available to individuals, widening our reach to groups not benefiting from the information advice and guidance that our Customer Services Centre gives
- We will monitor the effectiveness of the information, advice and guidance given by our Customer Service Centre to ensure that they are reaching community groups.
Responding to customer feedback
- We promise to listen to comments and complaints about the services we provide and the way in which we deliver them to our customers and where possible improve our services to ensure they meet the needs of all residents
- We will improve our monitoring systems for complaints to capture the protected characteristics of the individuals submitting a complaint, and whether the complaint is concerning an equality and diversity issue
- We will implement a robust involvement strategy to engage and respond to our stakeholders, with a stronger emphasis on working at a local level
- We will further develop our involvement and engagement strategy to reflect our commitment to working in a transparent manner with all of our stakeholders
- We will consult, involve and engage representative networks covering all equality areas to help inform our future activities
- We will value all customer feedback, whether positive or negative
- We will respond to feedback in a fair, honest and timely manner.
Our Approach to Engagement
- We will encourage more people under the age of 25 to respond to future consultations, where it is appropriate
- We will improve our knowledge and engagement with those classifying themselves as other in particular those originating from western Europe such as people with German, French, Polish and Italian ancestry
- We will continue to engage with people with disabilities to ensure their views are taken into consideration in designing and developing our services
- We will continue to engage with county-wide groups representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to improve our understanding of issues
- We will continue to engage with people from differing faiths to improve our understanding of issues
- We will encourage a more even split of respondents from both males and females in future consultations
- We will refine our equality and diversity monitoring forms to include the protected characteristics of pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnerships.
Representing the Community
- We aim to improve the information we capture on the profile of our Councillors
- We will be running training sessions for Councillors on the "Public Sector Duty"
Further information
For further information please contact,
Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications
Call: 01795 417533
Email: policy@swale.gov.uk
