Issue - meetings

The 2019/20 Equality & Diversity report appended to this paper provides an overview of the work undertaken by BCP Council to meet its responsibilities as set out under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty.

BCP Council’s equality commitments are embedded throughout the council’s corporate strategy and delivery plans.

Equality and diversity actions are captured in a council wide Equality & Diversity Action Plan which is included in the report appended to this paper.

The action plan is built around the requirements for achieving the excellent level of the Equality Framework for Local Government and the Council is progressing well against this.

The Director of Organisational Development presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Committee received the 2019/20 Equality & Diversity report which provided an overview of the work undertaken by BCP Council to meet its responsibilities under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty.

It was reported that BCP Council’s equality commitments were embedded throughout the Council’s corporate strategy and delivery plans and equality and diversity actions were captured in a council-wide Equality & Diversity Action Plan. The Plan had been circulated with the report and was built around the requirements for achieving the ‘excellent’ level of the Equality Framework for Local Government and the Council.

Progress was described as good against the 152 identified individual actions. Members were also reminded of the recent appointment of Councillor Bobbie Dove as Cabinet Lead on Equalities and the opportunity for her to be involved in future monitoring by the Committee was identified.

The Chief Executive chaired the Strategic Equality Leadership Group as part of the agreed governance framework with the objective of strengthening strategic direction and monitoring performance. The Equality and Diversity Action Plan had been submitted to the Equality Action Commission in September 2020 and challenge by the Commission was expected to strengthen performance.

Members highlighted the importance of ensuring that the Action Planning process reflected what was being achieved across the whole Council and an undertaken was given to provide the Committee, in due course, with assessment of action elsewhere in the Council that was also making a contribution but not shown in the central Action Plan. There was reference to particular initiatives in progress across the BCP Council that would need to be potentially referenced within the Action Plan.

The Committee also highlighted the potential for a more detailed examination of the subject at a future ‘extra’ Audit and Governance Committee meeting where the Lead Member could also be involved. This was also identified as a process for identifying any further information and governance focussed issues that the Committee might consider should be included within the Action Plan. Undertakings were given to discuss this and report back on progress to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Governance Committee

a)    note the Equality & Diversity 2019/20 End of Year Performance Report.

b)    note the changes to the Equality & Diversity Governance Framework.

c)    give further consideration at a future meeting to identification any further equality and diversity information that the Committee might require.

Voting: Unanimous