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Public sector equality duty

The public sector equality duty (the equality duty) is made up of a general equality duty which is supported by specific duties.

The general equality duty requires public authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to:

  • Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Act.
  • Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
  • Foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not share it.

The specific duties require public authorities to publish information to demonstrate their compliance with the general equality duty.

This information must include information relating to people who share a relevant protected characteristic who are:

  • its employees (for authorities with more than 150 staff)
  • people affected by its policies and practices (for example, customers).

The information needs to be published in a manner that is accessible to the public and the purpose of publishing equality information is to enable customers, staff, the Commission, regulators and other interested parties to assess the equality performance of public authorities.

Therefore, Warwickshire County Council is publishing the following information to meet this requirement.

Employment Information

There are various documents currently produced by Warwickshire County Council which provide the relevant equality information normally expected to be published. These are:

  1. Annual Statutory Workforce Diversity Report 2010-11 (pdf, 439Kb)
  2. Workforce Report - 31st December 2011 (pdf, 193Kb)
  3. Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service - Equality Information, Workforce Data 2011 (msword, 102Kb)

Customer and Functions Information

The Council undertakes a process called Equality Impact Assessment to record how it has undertaken due regard to the aims of the duty in decision-making in relation to service provision. This assists the Council in understanding the decisions impact on equality and highlights the evidence used in the decision-making process. The Equality Impact Assessment Schedule is attached below.

The Council also uses consultation and engagement information to inform its decisions. This information is taken into consideration when an Equality Impact Assessment is undertaken.

Consultation Hub - more information on consultations

The following documents provide a profile of customers accessing services within the different Business Units with the Council.

  1. Library & Information Service April 2011 (pdf, 11Kb)
  2. School Equalities Data (pdf, 120Kb)
  3. Pupil Ethnicity by locality - January 2011 (pdf, 25Kb)
  4. Data on Bullying - schools (pdf, 212Kb)
  5. Child Protection & Looked after Children data (pdf, 179Kb)
  6. Children services disability dataset quarter 2 (pdf, 34Kb)
  7. Children Service Race & Equalities Data - December 2011 (pdf, 246Kb)
  8. Adult Social Care Equality Monitoring 2011-12 1st Half (pdf, 180Kb)
  9. Adult Social Care Equality Monitoring 2011-12 1st Half Appendix A - tables (pdf, 60Kb)
  10. Adult Social Care Complaints Annual Report 2010-11 (pdf, 150Kb)
  11. Children’s Complaints Annual Report 2010-11 (pdf, 100Kb)

The Council uses a system called GovMetric to collate customer satisfaction information for individuals accessing the Customer Service Centre. The following report provides data for the last 12 months and is broken down into, Face 2 Face, telephone and Website.

  1. Customer contact satisfaction equalities report 2011 (pdf, 506Kb)

Other Relevant Information

As mentioned earlier the Council also uses information provided by Warwickshire Observatory, in particular:

  • Equalities profile for the District & Boroughs
  • Quality of Life 2011

Another element of the specific duties within the Equality Duty is for public sector organisations to publish their equality objectives by 6th April 2012.

The aim of these objectives is to demonstrate how we, as a Local Authority, are doing all we can to:

  • eliminate unlawful discrimination;
  • advance equality of opportunity; and
  • foster good relations

These equality objectives have been developed as part of the business planning process for 2012-13 using the equality information which was published in January 2012.

Our vision, "Working in Partnership to put Customers First, Improve Services and Lead Communities" forms the centre piece to our Strategic Delivery Framework and provides strategic direction to the Council.

Delivery of the vision will result in the following outcomes:

  • For our Citizens - quality services, in the right place at the right time;
  • For our Partners - willing to share resources, power and risk;
  • For our Staff - providing the culture, development and tools to do the job well so they can be proud to work for Warwickshire.

Therefore, Warwickshire County Council is publishing the following objectives to help deliver this vision and meet the requirements of the Equality Duty:

Equality Objectives 2012-13 (pdf, 30Kb)