Agenda item

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director – Health and Community providing an update on the current position on the equality and diversity agenda in Halton.

It was noted that equalities were a dynamic area of public policy and there had been major recent legislative changes in this area. The Equality Bill “A Framework for a Fairer Future” had been presented to Parliament in June 2008 and provisions of the Bill were outlined for Members’ information. It was noted that the legislation had strengthened the requirement to not only tackle discrimination but to actively promote diversity.

In December 2006, the Council adopted a new Corporate Equalities Scheme. This encompassed all its then legal duties in terms of promoting the race, gender and disability equality schemes. The scheme was currently being revised to ensure that the Council fulfilled all its legal obligations.

In May 2008 the Council invited the I&DeA to undertake a Peer Challenge and had subsequently been judged to have progressed to Level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government. Following this, the Corporate Equality and Diversity Group had agreed, and was progressing, an Action Plan to move forward to Level 4 of the Standard, acknowledging at the same time that the system may be amended in 2009-10.

Progress had been made in a number of areas, which were outlined within section 4 of the report for Members’ consideration, in respect of:

• the training of officers and Members;
• use of service plans;
• updates to the intranet and Website;
• involvement in an equalities forum with other Merseyside authorities; and
• a benchmarking exercise currently underway.

The Board noted that a conscious decision had been taken to carry forward equality and diversity work in the day-to-day task of service delivery and Halton’s progress in respect of the equalities agenda would be proportionate to the effort and resource expended. Therefore, all services would need to continue to demonstrate how they would effectively and efficiently encourage their teams to positively incorporate equality and diversity issues into their attitudes, behaviour, culture and all aspects of service delivery in order for this to have a beneficial impact on our communities.

In receiving the report, Members considered the proposal to provide a multi-faith prayer room, which would be available to all staff and members of the public. It was advised that this would be funded from within existing budgets and would be available for use by all faiths, filling a current gap in provision and helping to provide equality for all.

The Board was also advised that Riverside College had entered into a partnership with various companies in Libya to provide teaching opportunities in this country. This had resulted in a number of Lybian families moving into the area for a minimum of three months and it was hoped that this would offer opportunities for exchange learning around issues such as faith, business and commerce. The Strategic Director – Children and Young People reported that he had met with representatives of the College in order to consider implications for Halton as a result of this arrangement, for example learning needs of younger children within these families.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted and the actions outlined in section 4 of the report be endorsed in order for the Council to move forward to Level 4 of the Equality Standard for Local Government.