How we developed our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Action Plan

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Action Plan is informed by the Local Government Association Equality Framework, which outlines four areas of focus:

  • Understanding and Working with our Communities
  • Leadership and Organisational Commitment
  • Responsive Services and Customer Care
  • Diverse and Engaged Workforce

The Policy is also informed by the public consultation we held between January and March 2023 and feedback from our staff networks, as well as learning from the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard, Finance and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s report into racial inequalities, analysis of best practice, data and evidence on our borough and workforce, and feedback from our staff networks.  

Monitoring and accountability

Each year we will refresh our action plan, setting out what we will achieve that year to progress against the objectives. Our Equalities and Inclusion Steering Group will review progress on the Action Plan each quarter, and a progress report published regularly.

We will also monitor visitor numbers to equalities pages on our website so that we can track and try to improve engagement with our Policy.

We want to make sure that our actions have an impact and will monitor key indicators of progress.

Key indicators of progress for our workforce include:

  • our gender pay gap
  • representation of staff from diverse groups in senior roles
  • the proportion of staff that have provided their equalities monitoring information
  • feedback from our staff survey
  • feedback from our annual WRES survey

Key indicators of progress for the borough include:

  • life expectancy, by protected characteristics, and in different areas of the borough
  • health inequalities outcomes
  • employment rates, for all protected characteristics
  • rate of hate crime offences benchmarked locally and nationally and broken down by protected characteristics
  • data from the Community Safety Survey
  • rate of domestic abuse incidences benchmarked locally and nationally