ITEM CA11
CABINET – 18 DECEMBER 2007
RACE EQUALITY SCHEME
Report by Head of Partnership Working and Corporate Strategies Manager
Introduction
1. In accordance with the Race Relations Act 1976, as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Oxfordshire County Council has a statutory duty to prepare and publish a revised race equality scheme every three years.
2. A draft scheme has been prepared for consultation and is attached as Annex 1 (download as .pdf file) to this report. The final scheme will be considered by the Cabinet at its meeting on 15 January 2008 after final consultation has been undertaken with key stakeholders.
Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
3. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a statutory general duty on public authorities to actively promote race equality. This means that in carrying out our functions we must have due regard to the need to:
· Eliminate unlawful racial discrimination; · Promote equality of opportunity; and · Promote good relations between people of different racial groups.
4. The Act also imposes a number of statutory specific duties on the Council as a scheduled public authority. One of these is the requirement to publish a Race Equality Scheme and to then publish a revised scheme at least every three years; the other specific duties relate to employment. The Race Equality Scheme sets out the Council’s arrangements for meeting the requirements of these duties, in particular:
· Assessing our functions and policies for relevance to the general duty. · Monitoring, reviewing and assessing our functions and policies for their impact on race equality. · Consulting on and assessing new functions and policies for relevance and impact. · Meeting the employment specific duties. · Ensuring public access to information, services and to the scheme. · Publishing the results of the employment specific duties and impact assessments. · Informing and training staff in connection with the general and specific duties.
Why we want a Race Equality Scheme
5. Oxfordshire County Council has a strong track record of producing equality schemes ahead of statutory deadlines and going beyond the requirements of statute to achieve real benefits for people.
6. As set out in the draft race equality scheme, the scheme forms part of our commitment to achieving specific outcomes for Oxfordshire which promote fairness and deliver a county with strong, cohesive and well-integrated communities based on equality of opportunity, good race relations and the elimination of unlawful racial discrimination
7. The draft scheme, therefore, sets out clearly what those outcomes are, how they are prioritised within our activities across the council and how we are working with partners to achieve them.
8. It builds on the achievements of our previous two schemes and also demonstrates a fundamental change in approach by ensuring that the council focuses clearly on the delivery of outcomes for customers, employees and partners.
9. This scheme will act both as a clear sign-post to the council’s commitment to race equality and as a blueprint for its delivery. It makes race equality central to the way the council works and puts it at the heart of planning, service delivery and employment practices.
Key elements of the Race Equality Scheme
10. The key elements of the draft race equality scheme are:
· our obligations regarding race equality; · the specific outcomes and priorities we are aiming to achieve; · how we are currently achieving these outcomes, including via joint working; · our priorities centred on customers and their experience; · strong leadership, effective management, strategic direction and implementation; · implementation of our existing combined equality impact assesment process, with a revised rolling 3-year schedule of assessments.
11. In preparing the draft race equality scheme, input was sought from a number of sources, including a joint consultation exercise and a focused workshop undertaken with the Council’s Social Inclusion Reference Group. We carried out a variety of stakeholder consultations with voluntary and community organisations, race equality specialist workers, partner organisations, and other stakeholders. Stakeholders were also given the opportunity to comment on the draft outline of the scheme and to raise their own priorities for inclusion.
12. In addition, the Council commissioned detailed research to support the development of this scheme through identifying data on Oxfordshire’s population by ethnic group. This includes investigating geographical location, migration, educational attainment, skills, economic activity, deprivation and predicted changes in population groups.
13. Completed equality impact assessments also provided useful evidence and several services have identified the need to review their consultation arrangements with existing customers and potential service users, so that issues relating to race equality can be more easily identified.
Risk Management
14. The draft race equality scheme has been prepared following wide ranging engagement and consultation, and is focused on a clear set of prioritised outcomes that will be of real benefit to the people of Oxfordshire.
15. Adoption of a robust revised statutory race equality scheme will avoid the risks of preliminary investigations or enforcement action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, actions by individual complainants, adverse publicity and failure to maintain our Corporate Performance Assessment scores.
RECOMMENDATIONS
16. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:
(a) agree to circulate the draft Race Equality Scheme as set out at Annex 1 for final consultation; and,
(b) agree to consider the final draft of the Race Equality Scheme on 15 January 2008.
PAUL JAMES Head of Partnership Working Corporate Core
ADRIAN HARPER-SMITH Corporate Strategies Manager Corporate Core - Strategy
Background papers: Nil
Contact Officer: Adrian Harper-Smith, Corporate Strategies Manager, Corporate Core - Strategy. Tel: (01865) 810179.
December 2007
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