Equality objectives - introduction

The Council is under a duty to:

  1. eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation
  2. promote equality of opportunity
  3. foster good relations between groups

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

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 on the Equalities and Human Rights Commission's website.

The Council is also under a legal duty to:

  1. publish data and information (available on our Equality and Diversity page)
  2. develop and publicise quantifiable objectives

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

Working for the Council

The Council has 3.4 percent of staff that declare they have a disability. In the borough as a whole 18 per cent of residents of working age have a disability (predicted from the Census data 2009).

Our 2011 staff survey provided a lot of information about how staff view the Council. Seven per cent of staff out of 57 per cent of staff who responded said they had a limiting illness, health problem or disability. The results of the survey showed that staff with a limiting illness, health problem or disability were significantly less satisfied with their working life than those without such conditions. As a result the Council has commissioned work to find out more about how to support disabled staff and make recommendations for further improvement. Consultants were appointed to deliver targets by July 2012 and at the same time an Equality Impact Analysis was undertaken on the staff survey and the 2011 Council’s Staffing Report.

Objectives 

(a) To increase the proportion of staff declaring they have a disability from 3.4 per cent to 6 per cent by July 2014.

Responsible officers: Mary-Ann Lord (Human Resources), Prue Grimshaw/Angela Chaudhry (Disability & Equality)

(b) To improve the level of satisfaction of staff who have a limiting illness, health problem or disability so that it is the same as staff who do not, by July 2015

Responsible officers: Mary-Ann Lord, Jane Price (Human Resources).

Progress against these objectives 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 Working for the Council) 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.