Equality objectives - introduction

The Council is under a duty to:

  • eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
  • promote equality of opportunity
  • foster good relations between groups

Further details on the duty can be found on the website of the Home Office

The 2010 Equality Act names nine characteristics  that need to be considered, these are:

  • age
  • disability
  • gender reassignment
  • pregnancy and maternity
  • race
  • religion or belief
  • sex
  • sexual orientation
  • (in relation to discrimination) marriage and civil partnership

Further information on the nine characteristics can be found website of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

The council is also under a legal duty to:

 

The Council’s approach to setting equality objectives is available to download [PDF] (file size 43Kb)

The Council has set objectives in two areas:

 

1)    Working for the Council: Improving the working lives of disabled staff:

2)    Adult Social Care: Providing residents with learning disability and complex needs with tailored accommodation to enable independent living

 

Adult Social Care

In 2007 the Commission for Social Care Inspection (now the Care Quality Commission) recommended that the Council needed to do more to develop local services for people with complex needs (complex needs are where individuals have multiple impairments in learning, mental health, speech, self-care, mobility, hearing or vision) and central to this was seen a lack of suitable supported housing within the Borough.

As a result the Council commissioned a study which identified the opportunity to refurbish Piper House and convert the three six-bedroom flats into supported accommodation with 12 flats of which ten would be fully wheelchair accessible – as well as associated staff and communal areas. Following consultation on this proposal in January 2011 the Cabinet allocated a budget of £1.65 million to fund the work on Piper House.

In 2010 the number of adults who were known by the Council to have a learning disability was 321, including people with complex needs. Of these, 113 lived in residential accommodation outside of the Royal Borough.

Objective

To provide supported accommodation for six individuals with learning disabilities and complex needs to give them an opportunity to live independently in Piper House by December 2013; two of the six places being for residents who were previously housed outside the Borough by virtue of their specialist needs.

Responsible Officers: Bernadette Jennings / Shelia Rodgers (Adult Social Care).

Progress against this objective will be reported annually.

For further information please go to the Government’s Equality page or the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Getting involved 

You can get involved by reviewing the equality data and information (scroll down to Health and Social Care – Adult Social Care) and following the progress made on achieving our objectives. We will update this regularly and add new objectives in response to what we find.

Contact Information

Community Engagement Team

The Town Hall, Hornton Street W8 7NX

Tel 020 7598 4633.