Part Two - How the Council will meet its statutory duties 

Meeting the general duty

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act places a general duty on a wide range of public authorities to promote racial equality and prevent racial discrimination.

We will be guided by our corporate equality policy commitments and ensure race equality is a central part of our policy and service planning.

We will consider the extent to which all of our functions and policies meet the duty to promote race equality and make arrangements in service planning to meet the specific duties.

Specifi Duty - Policy and Service Delivery

The specific duty requires us to consider race equality in our policy, service delivery and employment.

We plan to build further on our existing race equality work to ensure future activity and changes to policy and service delivery are based on actual need not perceived need.

We will use our equality impact assessment procedure to do this. This procedure and guidance notes are included in our Corporate Equality Policy.

We will develop local performance indicators to help us monitor its effectiveness.

The stages of our impact assessment procedure as they relate to race equality are presented below:

Stage 1 - Identifying Relevant Functions and Policies

• We want our approach to be as thorough as possible so we consider that all policies and functions have the potential for possible racial discrimination.
• We have undertaken an assessment of relevance on this basis and erred on the side of inclusion.
• This assessment, which was carried out by an officer working group representing all service areas, will be regularly monitored and reviewed. 
• The model being used to assess the level of relevance of functions is based that identified in "The duty to promote race equality: A Guide for Public Authorities" published by the CRE in conjunction with the Code of Practice on the Duty to Promote Race Equality.
• All new policies will be assessed for relevance and impact. The equality policy also provides for an earlier assessment of current policies if circumstances dictate this would be appropriate.

 

Stage 2 - Prioritising functions for further consideration

• We have used our Relevance Assessment Model to prioritise functions and policies into a three year action plan for conducting impact assessments. High priority issues will be assessed first
• Our overall assessment is based on two factors. The potential for adverse impact and the likelihood for it to happen.
• We will also use other review procedures to initiate race equality impact assessments. The triggers will include best value reviews of services, reviews undertaken as part of the scrutiny function of the council, strategies and policies that are in any case scheduled for review, and policies where for other reasons an immediate review would be appropriate.
• Policies and services can discriminate against individuals or groups in ways other than race. To reflect this, our impact assessments look at a range of other equality factors.

 

Stage 3 - Assessing & consulting on the likely impact of existing and proposed policies.

 

• The impact assessment procedure provides for consultation as part of the process.
• We have a corporate research and consultation strategy. All policy reviews and service developments will be subject to an appropriate level of consultation with relevant groups.
• As part of our consultation strategy an annual consultation plan is agreed with a members' panel, the Research Standards Panel. The panel will ensure that the consultation arrangements are robust and inclusive.
• We recognise that consulting hard to reach groups, including black and minority ethnic groups, is particularly difficult when the numbers of people in these groups are small. Standard methods of consultation may not always ensure black and minority ethnic groups are fully engaged
• We are also considering ways to seek views on draft policies to double check we have not missed issues of concern to black and minority ethnic groups.
• We will consult on the results of the impact assessments carried out on existing and proposed functions and policies with our communities, focus groups and partners, including Cheshire Halton and Warrington Race Equality Council, to validate the assessments and obtain feedback. (In accordance with our research and consultation strategy).
• We will also use detailed information such as:

 

• We will use the results of our consultation and other data to influence the development of the policy or service.
• We will use the Council's Performance Management Framework to assess tasks in service plans against statutory duties including equalities legislation.

 

Stage 4- Monitoring policies for adverse impact

• It is the responsibility of the Corporate Policy Team to monitor and report on adverse impacts
• We will do everything we can to ensure that any adverse impact is identified and addressed.
• We will do this by:
  • monitoring through the Diversity and Equality Group
  • regular reporting from the council's Compliments Comments and Complaints procedure
  • the use of focus groups
  • liaison with groups representing black and minority ethnic people
  • discussion and consultation with the West Cheshire Race Equality Partnership
  • statistical analysis of ethnic monitoring data
  • satisfaction surveys (analysed by the racial groups to which the people surveyed belong)
  • random or targeted surveys
  • our residents survey panel
  • regular monitoring of the Corporate Equality Action Plan
  • using data from our customer relationship system. This is a database about all customers that will give valuable information on service use and overall views on service provision across a range of factors including race

Stage 5 - Publicising assessment, consultation and monitoring reports

• We will publish the results of assessments, consultations and monitoring of adverse impact.
• Each service has responsibility to contribute. The process will be tracked through our Performance Management arrangements.
• We will report to Cabinet and Examination and Review Committee twice a year summarising details of impact assessments, consultation results and progress with actions. These reports will be available on our website, and through the publication scheme under Freedom of Information.
• We will circulate the reports to interested partners for information and views.
• Annually we will publish a summary review in our Best Value Performance Plan and will include information in Chester News, our magazine to all residents.

 

Stage 6 - Ensuring public access to information and services

• We will improve public access to information and services.
• We will make as much information available under the Freedom of Information Act.
• We will:
  • develop relations with black and minority ethnic groups through representative organisations such as Chester Asian Council
  • maintain our support for and membership of partner groups such as Cheshire Halton and Warrington Race Equality Council, Cheshire Halton and Warrington Race Issues Group and West Cheshire Race Equality Partnership
  • develop our website to be more accessible to all users
  • The Race Equality Scheme and the Racist Incident Reporting Scheme will continue to be promoted widely and will be available at council information points and published on our website.
  • We provide information in different formats and languages, together with translation and interpreting facilities

Meeting Training and Development Needs

• We will continue to deliver race equality training.
• The overall aim of the training will be to:

• There will be a range of generic and bespoke training to meet the needs of everyone within the council.
• For members and senior managers in particular, understanding diversity and equality is recognised as a "core competency" and is included in the respective competency development programmes.
• For operational managers and front line staff, training will be provided at a more practical level depending on the needs of individuals and the context of the service. For example officers providing direct services to communities will need a higher degree of skill than officers in support areas.
• For all staff, training needs will be assessed and analysed through our performance appraisal system, which in turn informs the development of the annual training plan. In this way we can ensure that corporate and individual needs are correctly matched to the appropriate training.
• Training and development will be centred on the General Duty and delivered with specific needs identified through our service planning and performance appraisal arrangements. Needs will also be identified through the process of service and policy review.
• Training will have regard to:
  • understanding the national and local picture on black and minority ethnic communities and their needs
  • raising awareness of the issues and our approach to them in our equality framework
  • understanding statutory obligations
  • meeting the needs of the black and minority ethnic community
  • engaging hard to reach groups in service provision and reviews
  • working effectively in partnership to meet black and minority ethnic community needs
  • impact assessment
  • monitoring statutory compliance and effectiveness and target setting
  • explaining how race issues and equality is dealt with within our performance management framework and management information system
• The council's approach to equality will be included in induction and customer care training.
• Training will be provided in the context of the council's annual training plan.
• Delivery of training plans will include both in house and consultancy training depending on the nature of the training required. The Learning Resource Centre will also have information.
• The Council's annual training budget will pay for training supplemented where appropriate from operational budgets.
• We will review the effectiveness and quality of the training regularly. 

Specific Duty - Employment

To meet the specific duty on employment the council must:

• collect ethnic monitoring data
• analyse it to find any patterns of inequality
• take any necessary action to remove barriers and promote equality of opportunity
• publish annually results of monitoring

We are committed to developing a well-trained workforce that is diverse and socially inclusive. Our aim is to ensure that all employees are valued and have access to opportunities to realise their own potential.

We have set out our overall equality aims in employment within our corporate equality policy and our people Strategy.

The barriers to employment or promotion for particular racial groups can often be hard to identify, especially because the black and minority ethnic population in the District is small. We are committed to challenging discrimination in employment and promoting equality and fairness for all.

We recognise that religious identity is as important to many as their racial identify. We have made a commitment to give sympathetic consideration to employee requests to adapt working practices for their cultural and religious needs.

Long term monitoring will help us understand what is happening in our workforce from the time someone applies for a job to the end of their employment with us. This will also help us check if our equality policies are working, where action may be required and help us measure our progress.

Employees can raise their concerns informally or formally and work closely with the Trades Unions to examine and respond to any issues raised.

We acknowledge that a diverse workforce will help us to achieve our corporate goals and:

• use talents to the full
• ensure that staff-selection decisions are based on objective criteria that match the job
• avoid unlawful discrimination
•  measure if we are achieving our employment targets
• make the workforce more representative of the community we serve

Monitoring will include collecting informationsuch as racial group, gender or disability. We will also monitor the implementation of key employment policies including:

• recruitment and selection
• development and training
• discipline
• grievance
• bullying and harassment

Ethnic Monitoring

Our first stage of ethnic monitoring began in February 2002 with a survey of employees asking about their racial group, (using the 2001 Census categories) gender and disability.

We monitor the ethnicity of any shortlisted and successfulapplicants for employment.

We hold information on the ethnicity of most of our workforce and the statistics for September 2004 show that 1.3% of our workforce is from a black and minority ethnic background.

We will continue to collect, store and analyse data about the ethnicity of employees and job applicants short listed and successful candidates.

Where monitoring identifies unfairness, disadvantage or possible discrimination we will respond by taking necessary remedial action, training staff and revising policies and procedures.

If monitoring identifies that some racial groups are under-represented in the workforce we will consider targeting information on employment and training opportunities at those groups.