The Equality Scheme 2012-16 [pdf document] has been drawn up to help the Council meet the Public Sector Equality Duty established in the Equality Act 2010. The scheme was drawn up after consultation with a wide range of representatives from protected characteristics' groups. It commenced in September 2012 and replaced all of the Council's previous equality schemes.
A number of comments were made during the consultation that stressed the need for the Scheme to have external challenge via ongoing engagement with representatives of people who share legally protected characteristics. The Council's response to this has been to secure the involvement of these representatives in the setting up of an external stakeholder reference group. The broad aim of the group being to both support and challenge the Council's equality work whilst following an approach that is proportionate and in line with available resources. The first meeting of the external challenge group was held in December 2012 with further meetings being scheduled quarterly throughout the coming year.
Equalities Impact Assessment (EIA) is the tool that the Council uses to manage change and review services to achieve the fairest possible outcomes. Assessments are the key to making sure that the Council has due regard to the Equality Duty when it makes decisions on policies, projects and budgets. The EIA provides decision makers with an understanding of the potential effects of their decisions across all parts of the community.
Equality Impact Assessments. Further assessments will be added in due course.
In June 2010 a number of Workshops were held with groups of people who shared particular protected characteristics. The aim of these workshops was to identify key issues and priorities for these groups. Information supplied through these workshops was particularly helpful in establishing priority areas for our Equality Objectives published on 5 April 2012.
Feedback from each of these workshops:
From these workshops a number of common strands were identified. These have been used to influence the council's equalities planning and delivery.
- Transport (safe and accessible - need to then look at individual strands)
- Information and Communication (information that is accessible for all groups and gives timely information)
- Process for delivering the Act (A process to implement the act in an open and transparent way)
- Embed impact assessments that are robust and of high quality.
- Commissioning and procurement used to promote equality
- Put in place mechanisms to report, deal with, prevent hate crime, ASB, discrimination and harassment
- Challenge and change perceptions and stereotyping of people in Darlington
- Ensure that abuse in the home is dealt with effectively
- Maximise and celebrate the role of voluntary community groups in removing barriers impacting upon equalities
- Spread good practice in equality
- Retain a diverse Darlington workforce with the Council playing its part in addressing barriers.
A sample of current service plans is available here. Others will be published to this area of the website in due course.
Life Stage Service for Disabled Children and Adults with a Learning Disability [pdf document
Tree and Woodland Strategy 2011-2020 [pdf document]
In the 2010/11 Corporate Complaints, Compliments and Comments Annual Report there is a recommendation around undertaking a DEIA in relation to the Council's Tree Strategy specifically and all other policies and procedures more generally. Subsequently, the Council's Tree and Woodland Strategy was revised and now includes an 'Equalities Impact Assessment Statement' section.
Building Services Protocol [pdf document]
'Darlington Together' [pdf document]
Growing Older and Living in Darlington (GOLD)
Children's Centres
Breastfeeding Friendly Town [pdf document]
Darlington Breastfeeding Report. Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee 22 March 2011 [pdf document]
Supporting people affected by domestic abuse
Supporting People Contract equality impact assessment [pdf document]
Commissioning was undertaken by Supporting People for people affected by domestic abuse. There were two service commissions, an outreach support and a freedom programme. The findings from the impact assessment work were in turn implemented as contractual requirements within the service specification as detailed below. Each of these requirements will be monitored through our standard contract monitoring process which requires evidence of implementation and further client consultation to confirm effective implementation.
Delivery of Outreach Support: The Equality Impact Assessment undertaken with people affected by DA prior to the commissioning process, identified the high levels of anxiety individuals have at the commencement of support and the fact that the length of time the support is delivered needs to be person centred towards individual needs. It is therefore essential that discussions around the maximum length of support will need to be addressed sensitively with Clients with phased withdrawals of packages of support in place which are tailored to the needs and wellbeing of the Client. It would be possible to support the delivery of phased withdrawal of support for an alternative housing related support provision to commence working with a Client as part of phased handover.
The Equality Impact Assessment highlighted the Clients' key worker as the fundamental link person to facilitate access to agencies/organisations to meet additional or ongoing support needs. The Contractor is expected to prompt and give appropriate encouragement to Clients to engage in other services to meet their complete needs.
Delivery of Freedom Programme: The impact assessment undertaken prior to service commissioning identified that women gain the most benefit from the Freedom Programme when they themselves feel that they are "in an appropriate place to undertake the course". For some of these Clients they were initially referred to the Freedom Programme and did not engage, but engaged at a later period and found it an invaluable experience. Therefore, the Contractor must ensure that where a Client was referred and did not engage that this does not disadvantage them if a subsequent referral is made in the future.
Staffing: It has been recognised nationally that the Freedom Programme is a useful tool for many women attempting to break the cycle of DA, the impact assessment work undertaken prior to the service commissioning has identified the Freedom Programme as a vital tool to support self advocacy, restoring confidence and facilitating the making of informed decisions. This programme is essential in the understanding and prevention of DA in order to recognise and break the cycle of power and control.
General Requirements: The Equality Impact Assessment undertaken prior to the development of the Specification identified the need for continuous service promotion. Therefore there is a requirement for Contractors delivering both Lot 1 and Lot 2 to undertake on cyclical basis drop in sessions with key agencies organisations to ensure that services working with particularly vulnerable or disadvantaged individuals have an awareness of the services, referral route and what support can be offer through joined up working. It is expected that this will be carried out through a number of drop in sessions.
Update January 2013: The commissioned service provision for People affected by Domestic Abuse: floating support and the freedom programme have both received contract monitoring from the Supporting People. As part of the monitoring process a review was undertaken of the effectiveness of the actions identified through the Equality Impact Assessment process.
This included:
- Systems in place to support the delivery of phased withdrawal of support: this has included opportunities for an alternative housing-related support provider to commence working with a Client as part of a phased handover.
- Evidence of clients being given appropriate encouragement to engage in other services to meet all their needs.
- The Equality Impact Assessment undertaken prior to the development of the Specification identified the need for continuous service promotion. Information is provided to the Supporting People Team for ongoing monitoring.
Bengali School in Northgate
Proposal
To develop a learning zone for children and parents that want to learn Bengali (both writing and speaking). This would be a consistent opportunity that would be available on weekends for two hour sessions to deliver a language class to learn Bengali. It would be run by a qualified teacher who would offer 20 places in the class. This will be run on a "first come first served" basis, if there was an oversubscription the attendance would be reviewed regularly to give everyone a chance to come to the class for a period of time. This is a resource that the Bengali population in Darlington which is focussed mainly in the Northgate ward would benefit from as well as any other ethnic group that would be keen to learn this particular language.
Why is it needed?
Bengali children born and raised in the UK are learning English at school, speak English with their friends and siblings and are finding Bengali to be less important to them. However, their parents and grandparents converse in Bengali at home, many with little or no English, and are finding it difficult to have a conversation with their children or to support them with their homework through the language barrier.
Supporting children with the Bengali language also supports parents that are from Bangladesh and communicate largely in Bengali until they learn English. This is especially helpful for Bangladeshi women as it enables them to access a learning environment through their children and can start to break down barriers to further education for them.
Aims
- To educate 20 + children in the Bengali language
- Support parents into further education to reduce literacy problems
- Offer support to families that are having communication problems
Objectives
- Increase understanding of parents of children's education by improving their communication to each other
- Developing literacy skills in the Bengali population
- Development of volunteering opportunities within the community
- Raising awareness of cultural diversity within the town and ward by having a themed event and inviting the community along.
- Accreditation through family learning opportunities
Scheme Update
The scheme was funded through the Fairshare programme but the funding process and development of the work was supported by a Community Worker within the Council. 40 pupils regularly attend the school and an additional funding request has been made to Fairshare for a teacher to teach an advanced group.
Bangladesh Independence was celebrated at the school in December 2011. Children from the school put on a display and presentation and the event was attended by the Mayor of Darlington together with the whole of Corporation Road School. The Bengali school has helped with social integration and to break down barriers in the wider population who now have an increased awareness of Bengali culture and history.
British Sign Language (BSL) web pages
Welcome to Adult Social Care and What is an assessment
Provision of information about Council services in formats and languages that are accessible to everyone is an issue that is raised regularly at consultation events, forums and meetings. As part of the Council's Accessible Information Equality Objective two of the Council's web pages now incorporate BSL video translation. Three more pages will follow by 31 March 2013. Achieving this short tern objective will open up access to a significant group of people within Darlington and will be followed by an ongoing programme based on priorities set by the deaf community.
Page updated 31 January 2013