Equality and diversity

Our communities and our workforce are made up of a diverse range of individuals and groups with differing needs.

We want our county to be a place everyone can be proud of, with excellent services, thriving businesses and outstanding public spaces for everyone. We want all residents, regardless of background, to have access to great life opportunities, live healthy successful lives, conduct business with ease, age well independently, and work towards achieving their goals in life.

We also want our workforce culture to promote and embrace equality, fairness and inclusion.

As a public body, we're required to publish information which demonstrates our compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (contained in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010) to:

• eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010
• advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
• foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

Our equalities objectives are to: 

• develop, commission and deliver inclusive and responsive services
• foster strong relationships within our communities so everyone feels safe, supported to live independently, and residents are encouraged to get involved in improving local services
• develop and support a highly skilled workforce who are collaborative and ambitious in the work they do, whilst valuing diverse perspectives
• ensure leadership and organisational commitment to equalities

For more information around our objectives and how we plan to achieve them, see our equality policy.

We have a two-stage equalities impact assessment process. A short initial assessment for relevance to our equality duty and a fuller impact assessment where this is identified as being required.

This approach allows us to:

• consider equality issues where it is relevant to do so
• take a proportionate approach to comply with our duty

Where it is clear from the initial assessment that a policy or function will not have any effect on equality for any of the protected characteristics, no further action or analysis is required.

We give greater consideration where there is potential for substantial impact on discrimination or equality of opportunity for the public or our employees, and less consideration where the potential impact is slight.

Sometimes this process is integrated into another process such as a service review or project implementation document, and sometimes the assessments are standalone documents.

For further information, email [email protected] or call 01296 382 756.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan 2023-2024 (PDF, 1.45 MB) sets out our priorities for the coming year and outlines commitment to equality, diversity and inclusions for our workforce.

In response to the specific duty to publish information, we have produced our annual workforce equalities profile 2022 to 2023.

You can also view our EDI Action Plan Annual Report 2022-2023 to see how we performed against our aims in last year’s action plan.

These document provide examples of how we are complying with the Public Sector Equality Duty and also demonstrates our delivery in regards to equalities.

On the 28 January 2021, we adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. This marks our firm, public commitment to recognising and actively seeking to eliminate any form of discrimination relating to antisemitism.

The non-legally binding definition of antisemitism gives a clear outline of what antisemitism is and understanding of how it can manifest itself in today’s society.

The adoption will be reviewed inline with the equalities policy.

Visit our democracy website for more information on the Adoption of the IHRA working definition of Antisemitism.