A presentation by the Connected Communities Manager
Minutes:
The Equalities Officer Joseph Lewis explained his role to the representatives and stated that their role was to help the authority to develop strategic objectives and to observe how these were monitored. The current plan was in place until April 1st, 2020 and so a new plan was needed. The Equality act ensured that these plans were developed over the lifecycle.
In 6 month’s time a new plan for the authority was needed which was still in process. The plan was to go to public consultation and the Equalities Officer then went through the plan to explain to the representatives what it would look like, some of these would be issues relating to Equalities in Community Councils:
Main Points:
• Strategic plan- This contained broad criteria over the effectiveness of the equality plans. Welsh Government were looking at how plans could be more effective.
• Key themes- the draft objectives included;
- Leadership and Governance,
- A better promotion of;
1. Representatives of the workforce,
2. Demographic of the workforce and whether it reflected diversity,
3. Council services and how people accessed the Council buildings e.g. the Information Station,
4. How British Sign Language (BSL) was represented,
5. Community Cohesion,
6. Community tensions related to Brexit,
7. Provisions related to young and older people,
8. Education and Social Services relationships.
The plan was to span these areas and touch on each protected characteristic in the act such as race, sex, sexual orientation, disability etc.
Specific comments that were criticism specific stated that the plan was not outcome focused and not very user friendly.
The consultation involved working with specific groups talking to specific organisations that dealt with race or disability in detail as to what they thought Newport was doing in relation to the characteristics of the Act. The consultation in November involved ironing out the practicalities as it was still at the developing stage, the structure was quite lengthy which would be looked at.
A representative asked how the plan would be made be available to Community Councils and members with a disability.
It was confirmed that the Newport Council Equality plan would be available to all members of the public to comment on and would be available in different formats to make it accessible.
In November the full public consultation would take place with different key organisations such as the Ethnic Support Team, the Newport Access Forum, and the Women’s Equality Network.
A representative stated that if past plans were weak on outcomes how could this be evaluated, and it was discussed that the current plan had quite broad terms so it was not clear on what the outcomes would be. For example there was a commitment to diversify the workforce but what would this look like e.g. an apprenticeship scheme brings young people into the organisation and data can show that we were not as representative as we should be. It was discussed that in the current plan there were some draft actions where Welsh Government wanted a smaller pay gap for example, so a specific amount could be planned but this was not known yet. It was thought that there would be a restructure of the current plan and the direction would be clearer for 2024.
There was a question as to whether there would be a financial impact on Community Councils, but it was confirmed that it was not thought this would occur as it was a Newport Council plan there was no cost to Community Councils. Any outcomes that occurred then Newport City Council would be charged for this.
It was also discussed how equality could be improved within Community Councils, but it was confirmed that this was not possible but Welsh Government wanted the diversity of Councillors for Newport City Council to be improved. This was quite a difficult thing to do and it depended on how parties put forward their members for election. If political parties wanted to have a 50/50 list of men and women then they could do this, and the Equalities team could also look at targeting underrepresented groups across the workforce and the plan will also cover this.
It was questioned that in relation to Community Councils work which was not meant to be political, some Councillors go to Election as independent so this will not apply to some Community Councils as the representative was not political and would just work for their area. The Chair commented that this was not part of this plan.
The Chair commented that what was most important for the Consultation was the service delivery and how we make our services available to the public and that rural areas etc were not a protected characteristic. The Chair stated that what was relevant was whether there were groups in the Community Council Area who were disabled etc who were suffering if Newport City Council were not delivering council services.
A representative stated that a decline in bus services etc would be an issue and it was discussed how the Human Rights Commission often flag up the suitability of bus stops, dropped kerbs etc and these issues were relevant to the plan.
It was noted that the Council does not work bus routes and so if Stagecoach does not put on enough bus routes the Council could subsidise certain non-commercial routes.