Agenda item

The Director of Legal and Governance services submitted a report to seek approval for the proposed revisions to the Council’s four corporate equality and inclusion policies following their scheduled triennial review in order to ensure continued compliance with the Equality Act 2010.

 

Consideration of policies required to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 was a duty reserved to the Executive Member for Communities and Education within the Executive Scheme of Delegation.

 

The report outlined that the Equality Act 2010 places a Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) on the Council and was supported by specific equality regulations that the Council must also comply with.

 

The PSED requires that when taking decisions the Council must have due regard to the need to:

 

• eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation;
• advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it; and
• foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

 

Furthermore, the Act states that compliance with this duty may involve:

 

• removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are connected to that characteristic;
• taking steps to meet the needs of persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it; and
• encouraging persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low.

1.    The PSED states consideration should also be given to the steps involved in meeting the needs of disabled persons where they are different from the needs of people who are not disabled including, in particular, steps to take account of disabled persons’ disabilities.

 

2.    The protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act 2010 are:

 

age; disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity;

race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.

 

The Act was supported by specific regulations, which place additional duties upon the Council. It is required publish information to demonstrate compliance with the PSED. The Council must also prepare and publish one or more specific and measurable objective it thinks it should achieve to enable it to meet the general PSED.

The report outlined that the Council has in place four corporate equality and inclusion policies to ensure compliance with the PSED:

 

1.    Equality and Inclusion Policy

2.    Equality monitoring Policy

3.    Impact Assessment Policy

4.    Monitoring of Hate Incidents Policy

 

The report outlined that these policies were approved in November 2017 and are reviewed every three years, unless there are changes to legislation in the intervening period that would require an earlier review. The policies were reviewed in late 2020 and the review resulted in the proposal of minor revisions to the existing policies:

 

• all policies have been revised to reflect organisational changes since November 2017; and
• the Equality Monitoring Policy has been revised to ensure that the standard questions align with the planned question structure within the 2021 Census.

 

Options

Other potential decisions and why these have not been recommended

 

1.    The Council could decide not to adopt corporate policies on equality and inclusion, however legal duties would remain in place and in the absence of standard approaches there would be an increased risk of making decisions that fail to meet those legal duties. As such, this option is not recommended.

 

2.    Alternatively, the Council could combine these policies into fewer than four documents. The number of corporate policies was streamlined at the last review and it is considered appropriate to have a short, overarching equality and inclusion policy for all stakeholders supported by more detailed specific policies for those that use them. As such, this option is not recommended.

 

ORDERED

 

That the Executive Member approves the proposed revised corporate policies relating to equality and inclusion (Appendix 1), equality monitoring (Appendix 2), impact assessment (Appendix 3) and the monitoring of hate incidents (Appendix 4).

 

 

REASON

 

The decision was supported by the following reason:

 

To ensure that the Council retains a framework that provides a structure for fair and transparent decision-making and ensure compliance with the PSED.