Decision details

Cabinet received a report which presented the 2018/19 Annual Equality and Diversity Review. 

The Public Sector Equality Duty of the 2010 Equality Act required the Authority to publish information on an annual basis in relation to people with protected characteristics who were employees or were affected by its policies and practices; and at least once every four years the equality objectives it thought it should achieve to meet the general equality duty.

The Authority achieved these duties through the publication of its Equality and Diversity Review every June.

The 2018/19 Annual Review outlined the Authority’s progress against its Corporate Equality Objectives and service area equality actions; thereby contributing to the monitoring of the Authority’s Equality and Diversity Policy commitments.

The 2018/19 Annual Review:

• Outlined the Authority’s equality highlights for 2018/19;

• Provided a final review of performance against the 2016-19 Corporate Equality Objectives;

• Described initial progress against the new Corporate Equality Objectives agreed by Cabinet in January 2019 and implemented from April 2019;

• Identified service area equality priorities for 2019/20 (drawing on actions identified within service plans to support the achievement of the new Corporate Equality Objectives);

• Gave an overview of employee equality data; and

• Reviewed performance against service area equality actions during 2018/19.

A draft of the review had been circulated for comment to a range of external stakeholders, as outlined in the report.  Internally feedback had been sought from members of the Corporate Equality Group, Senior Leadership Team and the Deputy Mayor. 

Six responses had been received to this consultation and minor amendments had been made to produce the final review document.

A copy of the 2018/19 Annual Equality and Diversity Review was appended to the report.

In accordance with the Equality and Diversity Policy governance arrangements, Cabinet would receive a further update on progress against the Authority’s Equality Objectives in December 2019.

In response to a query by Mr Layton, on the behalf of the Trades Unions, the Deputy Mayor agreed to ask officers to inform him whether the Islamic Society had been included in the consultation as part of the review.

Resolved that the findings of the 2018/19 Annual Equality and Diversity Review, attached at Appendix 1 of the report, be noted.