The first step was to identify all the Council's services and decision-making processes, to assess how these were delivered and to identify whether or not there was, or was the potential for, unequal treatment or delivery. This piece of work was completed early in May 2002. This element of work used the Local Government Act guidance on which functions should be considered. We then assessed their relevance to race equality by asking a number of key questions.
The functions and policies we assessed as relevant are shown at Appendix 1.
We then assessed the degree of relevance by asking further questions.
We found that this approach was helpful and it will be further developed and used to assess proposed new areas of work in future.
However, the outcome of this piece of work showed that we had little or no evidence on which to base decisions and there is no known public concern that discrimination is occurring. This does not mean that there is no discrimination. Rather, it highlighted the fact that we have few, if any, systems in place to monitor the effect on different groups.
Given our low starting point we plan to review the whole Race Equality Scheme more frequently than the required three year cycle until substantial progress has been made. We will enter this into our Corporate Calendar to ensure that it happens.
Prioritising those services and decision making processes assessed as relevant has led to the development of both corporate and directorate action plans to eliminate unlawful discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and promote good race relations. The corporate actions are summarised in the table.
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| Action |
Timescale |
| Develop effective links with the local black and ethnic minority communities |
June 2002 and ongoing |
| Integrate equalities issues into the work of the LSP |
June 2002 and ongoing |
| Develop methods to ensure all sections of the community have equal access to information on Council services |
June 2002 |
| Make all staff aware of the need for and content of the Race Equality Scheme |
June 2002 |
| Develop and implement a corporate template to assess the relevance of future policies and proposals for service delivery to the general duty |
June 2002 |
| Monitor future policies and proposals for service delivery to assess impact on racial groups and equality issues generally |
July 2002 and ongoing |
| Review the corporate complaints procedure to ensure that it can deal with race equality complaints and set up monitoring systems |
July 2002 |
| Integrate equality issues into our communications and consultation policies to ensure equality issues are actively promoted |
August 2002 |
| Integrate consideration of race equality issues into corporate systems and procedures eg Best Value, Performance Management, Corporate Business Planning etc |
September 2002 |
| Integrate the Race Equality Scheme into the Public Service Agreement proposals |
November 2002 |
| Report progress to Scrutiny Commission 1 |
Quarterly |
| Provide progress report and the results of monitoring for the Best Value Performance Plan |
March/April 2003 |
As highlighted above we currently have few, if any, systems in place to monitor our services and decision-making processes to assess whether there is any adverse impact on particular racial groups.
We recognise, however, that without them we will not be in a position to measure the effects of what we do and to identify whether there is discrimination in the way that we deliver our various services.
The development and implementation of such systems has been identified as a priority task in directorate action plans.
In employment terms we have monitored ethnicity in relation to recruitment processes but the resulting information has not been used. Proposals in this area are discussed in more detail in the Specific Duty - Employment section of this Scheme.
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The Council does not currently have systematic methods of assessing the effects of what it is proposing to do on any particular group. As highlighted above, this will form part of our action plan for the first year. This will lead to race equality being built into policy and decision making processes.
The Council has a Consultation Strategy and this includes consultation with disadvantaged and hard to reach groups. We will work closely with the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) to consult with a variety of individuals and groups on the equality agenda. The LSP will be leading on the development of the Community Strategy over the next few months and one of the key elements of the strategy will be social inclusion in all forms. In this way we will avoid consultation overload and prevent all public organisations in the area asking the same people the same thing time and time again. We see this partnership approach as a key element in taking forward our equalities work programme and we are looking at ways to extend this to neighbouring authorities so that we can identify common problems and share examples of best practice.
This approach will enable us to contact different groups in a way that is most appropriate for them. We are looking for local communities to play a key role in all areas of our work and we will therefore ask our service users and providers for their views on the best approach to gaining meaningful information through consultation on equality issues.
This is work that will be put into place but we have also started the process of consultation. We have contacted groups that have come into contact with various directorates of the Authority to seek their views. This showed that we have a small ethnic minority community but also that they do make contact with the Authority. We therefore need to build much closer links with our black and ethnic minority community and this work forms part of our action plan for next year.
Internally, we wrote to all staff who had indicated that they were from a non-white background and asked for volunteers to form a reference group for consultation purposes. Three volunteers came forward and have been used for consultation purposes.
All staff will be given the opportunity to read and provide feedback on the Scheme once published. This was not possible prior to publication given the timescales but staff views will be fed into future Schemes.
We are looking at how to build equality monitoring into the day to day activities of front line staff. Our Strategic Management Team has been working on Corporate Business Plans and Directorate plans that outline the corporate areas of priority. They have also agreed to a format for plans that outline the work of each unit of the Authority and how it contributes to the corporate agenda. The plans will include equality issues within them and outline how any issues, complaints etc. will be reported and monitored. This will be backed up by guidance on complaints, performance management etc., and will be part of the overall commitment to working towards being a Best Value Authority.
Scrutiny Commission 1 and Cabinet will also receive regular updates on equality issues.
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The Council has a well established and proactive approach to using the local media to ensure that members of the community are aware of the work we do. These arrangements will encompass the publication of the results of any assessments we carry out.
The Council's Consultation Strategy requires feedback to be given on the outcome of any particular consultation exercise. This will encompass feedback to our black and ethnic minority community once arrangements are in place to ensure that consultation takes place.
The Council publishes, each year, a Best Value Performance Plan. A summary of this Plan is sent to every household in North East Lincolnshire and we believe that this would be the most appropriate way to ensure that the results of the monitoring discussed above reaches every member of our community.
We will also use our website (www.nelincs.gov.uk) to publish this information where possible.
Staff training will also be provided so that awareness of monitoring information is raised and the importance for keeping such information is recognised. As part of the new way of working within the Authority equality monitoring will be an integral part of the daily operation of the Council.
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When considering these arrangements we recognised that our communication of information to the community is done in English and we have therefore included consideration of how we can make information more accessible in our action plan.
When we carried out the exercise to assess the relevance of our services and decision making to race equality it became clear that consideration of race equality issues in service delivery had not been systematic. The corporate and directorate action plans address this so that, eventually, there will be equality of access to services.
The Council has only been able to provide minimal training prior to the introduction of the Race Equality Scheme for those staff with special responsibilities for managing and introducing the Scheme given the timescales involved and the lack of training opportunities available. The Council will, however, ensure that all staff who require training in race equality issues, whether general or specialist in nature, will receive the required training in the coming months.