Equalities

The Council takes seriously its commitment to equality, diversity and cohesion, this commitment is supported by the Comprehensive Equality Policy and Corporate Equality Plan, published on this weblet.

The Council is at Level 2.5 (from 5) of the Equality Standard for Local Government as at March 2007. We are working towards Level 3 for March 08. We welcome the update to the Standard incorporating the new strands of age, religion and sexuality.

Please use the links to visit our Disability Equality Scheme, the Gender Equality Scheme and Race Equality Scheme. We are working towards integrating the three Schemes into a Comprehensive Equality Scheme and hope to complete this work by December 2007.

The weblet is designed to provide you with information and resources about policies, procedures and good practice on equality, diversity and cohesion. We welcome your suggestions as to how we can improve the weblet. You can do this by following the contact link.

Equalities is a shorthand term for all work carried out by an organisation to promote equal opportunities and challenge discrimination, both in employment and in carrying out functions and delivering services.

Equalities work focuses on developing policies, procedures and practices to promote equality for:

i) Individuals and communities covered by UK and European anti-discriminatory legislation;

ii) People who experience direct and indirect discrimination and the subsequent disadvantage that can follow from this discrimination.

Equalities is a majority issue. It affects all people. However there is a focus in equalities work on race, gender, disability, sexuality, age and faith. The aim of much of our equalities work is to meet the needs of equality target groups.