Equality and diversity roles and responsibilities

Individuals and groups have specific roles in meeting our equality and diversity responsibilities.

Bi-annual progress reports will be presented to Directors’ Board. Annual progress on equality objectives will be presented to relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committees as part of Corporate Plan reporting.

Elected members

Elected members will fulfil their statutory responsibilities under equalities legislation and aim to promote good community relations in all their work, particularly in their community leadership role.

Directors’ Board

The Board will champion and lead by example by using the Public sector equality duty to encourage the integration of equality and diversity issues in all aspects of departmental work. The Board will actively help to promote equality and diversity issues and actions within departments

Directorate management teams

Directorate management teams will maintain an overview for the directorate and ensure effective development, implementation and monitoring of service equality and diversity objectives and related actions; as part of business and service plans.

Policy and Review Team

The Policy and Review Team will:

• attend all Directorate Equality Groups in order to share best practice, keep Groups up to date with the latest legislation and capture work undertaken and planned for reporting to Directors’ Board
• co-ordinate regular meetings of Directorate Equality Leads
• work with directorate management teams and directorate equality and diversity working groups to help disseminate and feedback information in a two-way process
• provide a co-ordinating, strategic, development and monitoring/review function on equality and diversity work for the authority
• provide training and support on Equality Impact Needs Assessments (EINAs)
• act as a critical friend on EINAs and act as final sign off on all EINAs

Managers

Managers will demonstrate commitment to equalities by:

• promoting them within their everyday roles, for themselves and their staff
• identifying appropriate training needs and providing training opportunities, as providers and commissioners of services
• monitoring the effectiveness of equality policies and programmes in their areas
• feeding into the equality and diversity objective setting and review processes.

Staff

Staff will be encouraged to demonstrate commitment to equalities by:

• taking active steps to challenge discrimination and harassment
• feeding into the equality and diversity objective setting and review processes in their departments, and
• supporting managers in their effective implementation.

Contractors

Contractors will incorporate the Council’s Public sector equality duty commitments in all dealings and practices on behalf of the Council in all areas assessed as relevant to the duty.

Partners

Partners will be aware of the Council’s equality and diversity policy commitments and objectives in all key and relevant areas.

Stakeholders and communities

Stakeholders and communities will feed into the process of setting equality and diversity objectives and action plans, and monitoring and reviewing these.