Meeting documents

The Executive
Tuesday, 19 March 2002

EX190302-09

Report by the Deputy Leader of the Council

The Council has a good record in this area. It was ahead of the rest in the 1980s for its employment policies and practice and the Anti-Poverty Working Group (later to become the Social Inclusion Working Group), which was set up in 1996, has been generally well-supported by Departments. This has been done with minimal staffing. Bruce McLaren combines the Social Inclusion work with his other community responsibilities. Hilary Simpson and Derek Bishop have between them undertaken Equalities work by, in effect, squeezing the time out of their other duties.

Both Derek and Hilary now have new roles in the Council. Insofar as Hilary was working on equal opportunities in employment, that will be covered by whoever replaces her in the Personnel Department. But 'equalities' covers service delivery as well as employment and two new statutes are imposing heavy duties on us to produce a Race Equality Scheme and to deal with the replacement of the CRE Race Equality Standard by a new standard including gender and disability.

The change in the structures of Council caused us to explore ways of promoting Social Inclusion through a small, better-focussed, group. It would include representatives of all Departments. Elected members would be limited to the Deputy Leader and a representative of the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee. Its remit would be to provide support (e.g. statistics, advice on statutory duties) and to act as a ginger group (alerting departments to best practice elsewhere; sharing experience within the Council). An initial informal meeting was held on the 8 February. There was a good attendance and an enthusiasm for working in this way. The new group were happy to combine Social Inclusion and Equalities (non-employment issues) in their remit.

Meanwhile a strong case has been made to employ an Equalities Officer (see annexed paper). This can be funded for 2002-03 from carry-forwards but would need new funding in 2003-04 and beyond.

(i) Ethnic Minorities

There has been no meeting of the Ethnic Minorities Consultative Committee since September 2001. Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee are in the process of producing recommendations for future consultation arrangements with this and other groups and will be having discussions with ethnic minority representatives around this issue. The preceding agenda item reports the Scrutiny Committee’s progress so far.

Meanwhile, in order to demonstrate the Executive’s wish to maintain good relations with ethnic minority representatives I suggest it would be helpful for us to meet informally with former members of the Consultative Committee at an early date to discuss service issues.

It has been suggested that there is at present some duplication of responsibility for access issues between departments.

RECOMMENDATIONS

that the Social Inclusion Working Group and Equal Opportunities Working Party should be replaced by a single Member/Officer Working Group, dealing with both Social Inclusion and Equalities (other than employment issues);

that the Working Group should consist of representatives of all Departments together with the Deputy Leader of the Council and a member appointed by the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee;

that a new Equalities post should be created, noting the financial implications for 2003-4;

that no long-term decision should be taken on the future of the Ethnic Minorities Consultative Committee until the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee reports on consultation generally, and meanwhile that former members of the Sub-Committee should be invited to an informal meeting with the Executive where they could make representations to the Executive on service issues;

that there should be a review of the working arrangements of access officers across the Council, the details to be decided when the new Equalities Officer is in post.

MARGARET GODDEN
Deputy Leader of the Council

11 March 2002

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