Agenda item

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance submits a report that provides an overview of the feedback from engagement with staff, which helped to support the development of the draft Equality Strategy and Action Plan 2018-2022.  The Overview and Select Committee is requested to note and comment on the draft Equality Strategy and Action Plan.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance (DCPG) submitted a report that provided an overview of the feedback from engagement  with staff, which helped to support the development of the Draft Equality Strategy and Action Plan 2018-2022.

Hannah Watkins, the Equalities Manager presented the report explaining that Members were recommended to note and comment on the strategy and action plan before it went to the meeting of Council in June 2018.

A Member referred to a relation of hers who had a hidden disability and needed a quiet environment to work, but unfortunately his manager did not always appreciate his needs. This had had a detrimental impact on the employee’s wellbeing and his success at work.  The Equalities Manager explained that raising awareness of hidden disabilities was a key action in the strategy action plan and the actions include holding a Disability Awareness Event in July where they would be looking at hidden disabilities and she would feed in the Member’s comment.

A Member endorsed the fact that the council aimed to have a diverse workforce that represented the community it served, but said that when he last looked at the breakdown for services, the least represented in terms of gender was in youth work. Male staff were under represented, particularly in view of the large numbers of young males that the service was trying to help. He stated that the strategy should not just look at traditional under representation, but there needed to be a plan to enable a representative work force that delivered the best possible service to all the users.  Managers needed to be aware and have a plan to implement this. The Equalities Manager responded that this was a valid point which would be fed into the strategy.

A Member asked how the strategy would help members of the community who had little or no English. The Equalities Manager explained that measures were in place to help, including promoting the use of Plain English translations and raising awareness of the translation and interpretation policy, to ensure that people are supported to understand the council forms, documents and website. for some of the most widely used languages and information was available on the website. The Member noted those but expressed concerns that the elderly and infirm could not use computers.

A Member commented that she understood that employee groups were self-forming and questioned whether employees should be encouraged to form a mental health group. The Equalities Manager responded that there was now a recently formed Mental Health Group already I place, which had held an event  recently with 60 attendees. Members heard that some good work had emerged from that meeting.

The Chair drew the discussion to a close and commented that the strategy as well as equal pay were appropriate and important topics one for the Overview Select Committee to consider because if involved issues which cut across different scrutiny commissions. He asked for updates on the Action Plan to be brought to future meetings of the committee.

The Director responded that the strategy and action plan are live documents and they would be pleased to bring this and the workforce representation updates back to future meetings of the committee.

The City Mayor reported that the Assistant City Mayor for Communities and Equalities was very grateful for the work that had been carried out on the strategy and was very disappointed that she could not be present at the meeting given her close involvement in this work.

AGREED:

that the report be noted and updates be brought to future meetings of the Overview Select Committee.