Meeting documents

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Andy Barton (01296) 585430

Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), came into force on 5 April 2011. The objective behind the duty was to ensure that consideration of equality issues formed part of the routine, day-to-day decision making and operational delivery of public authorities. In summary, it required that the District Council, in the exercise of its functions, had due regard to the need to:

·                    eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by or under the Equality Act.

·                    advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not by:

o        Removing or minimising disadvantage that people in the protected groups suffer because its connected to that protected characteristic

o        Take steps to meet the needs of people from the protected groups where these differ to those of other people

o        Encourage participation from protected groups in public life or other activity where their participation was disproportionately low

·                     foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not by:

o        Tackling prejudice.

o        Promoting understanding.

The protected characteristics were age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.

Following the introduction of the Equalities Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011, the Council had published a statement in 2012 on how the Council was meeting the Public Sector Equality Duty.  The regulations were designed to ensure that public bodies were transparent about their compliance with the Equality Duty. And, by publishing information about their equality performance and objectives, public bodies would be accountable to the people and communities they served.

The Committee received a report which provided an assessment (Appendix 1) of the Council’s performance against the Public Sector Equality Duty and which had been updated in light of the Council’s performance assessment for 2017, and also demonstrated that AVDC was complying with the general Equality Duty.  This included information about the population of the District, information about Council staff and what AVDC was doing to meet the equality duty.  The information would be considered by Cabinet on 9 January 2018, with a view to publishing an updated Public Sector Equality Duty statement on how AVDC was continuing to meet its statutory duty.

While the Scrutiny Committee was satisfied with the assessment given of the Council’s performance against the Public Sector Equality Duty for 2017, Members suggested that future reporting should:-

·                    look to include measurable objectives/baselines and report on performance against them.

·                    include more information on health and disability and how the Council was meeting it’s legal obligations.

·                    include more explanatory information generally throughout the report, for example:

o        on why the percentage of employees who had self-declared disability had fallen over the last 10 years.

o        on why there were generally more females in the grades (SG2-SG5).

o        on flexible working (e.g. female/male breakdown, grades of people that were working flexibly.)

o        highlighting, by way of examples, some of the positive work that had been done by AVDC to meet the equality duty.

o        how many staff had completed the Hate Crime eLearning module.

o        on the rationale for organising ladies only swimming and fitness sessions.

o        if possible, comparing AVDC’s performance to like Local Authorities.

The Cabinet Member for Communities thanked Members for their feedback, and gave an undertaking to take it into account in developing measurable equality objectives / baselines, and for future reporting.

RESOLVED –

That AVDC’s Equality Report and performance for 2017 be noted.

NOTE:  Councillor Lambert declared a personal interest as a spokesperson on equalities at Buckinghamshire County Council and at the Bucks Fire and Rescue Service.