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Working towards an equal city
Brighton & Hove City Council is committed to equal opportunities in employment and service delivery. It seeks to ensure equality for all, combating all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, colour, ethnic or national origins, religion and belief, gender, sexual orientation or marital status and disability or age.
This applies to recruitment, training, pay, and conditions of service for employees, design and delivery of service for customers, and strategic planning and policy formation. The council will be active in ensuring it complies with the requirements of national legislation and standards, and seek to influence partners and contractors to meet their obligations through agreement and contractual arrangements it enters into.
Information about equality and discrimination can be found on the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) website. Please see links below.
Equalities and Inclusion Policy
The Equality and Inclusion Policy for Brighton & Hove City Council [PDF 241kb] covers the period 2012 to 2015. It describes our vision, objectives, key actions and measures to promote, facilitate and deliver equality in the council and the rest of the city.
It brings together and replaces our existing policies – ‘Working Towards an Inclusive City’ and the ‘Single Equalities Scheme’. The new policy builds on our strong track record on equalities, including our excellence award from the 2011 Equality Framework for Local Government Diversity Peer Challenge.
Its objectives also meet our requirements under the public sector duty of the Equality Act 2010. Data on staff are also available in our Workforce Profile Data document [PDF 154kb]. Data on service-users is collected by departments and used in Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) and service reviews. It is available from these teams or through our published EIAs.
For more details on the policy or action plan, see our Equality and Inclusion Policy page. Or contact Sarah Tighe-Ford, Equalities Co-ordinator on (01273) 292301 or email sarah.tighe-ford@brighton-hove.gov.uk
The Equality Framework for Local Government
The council's progress in delivering Equality of Opportunity is assessed against the Equality Framework For Local Government. The current assessment is that Brighton & Hove City Council is working at Excellent Level of the framework. At this level an authority must demonstrate that it is effectively setting equality objectives and targets, delivering information systems and monitoring systems that will allow it to assess its progress in achieving these targets. For further information, please see our equality framework for local government page.
Race equality in employment in Brighton & Hove City Council
The council recently commissioned independent experts Global HPO to examine our policies and processes and see how they affect our Black and Minority Ethnic staff. The report recognises that the council has had some significant achievements and initiatives in equality and employment but rightly challenges us to do more to meet the standards that our staff and customers expect.
Please see our full report from Global HPO [PDF1.1mb]. An action plan is now being developed and although still in draft form some of its recommendations are already being put into practice such as improving our management information, making sure that we have shared values and behaviours across the organisation and reviewing all of our staff training. Please see a full list of work already undertaken [PDF28kb].
The report and action plan will be discussed at Policy and Resources Committee on 11 July 2013.
Staff groups
- Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Workers' Forum
- Disabled Workers' Forum
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Workers' Forum
We support and encourage staff to join these groups which enable individuals to share experiences, raise awareness on the effects of discrimination, have a collective voice with the council in terms of best practice, ie policy, procedures and service delivery, and provide networking and information sharing opportunities.