Equalities in Blaenau Gwent

Every four years the Council is required to review its Strategic Equality Plan and Equality Objectives in-line with the Equalities (Wales) Act 2010.

To meet our statutory duties, we are pleased to present Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s third Strategic Equality Plan 2020-24. A plan which sets out how we will meet our duties under the Equality (Wales) Act 2010.

Putting fairness and equality at the heart of everything we do is central to maximising well-being outcomes for our residents, local communities, staff and visitors, now and in the future.

We recognise as public service providers we have a key role to play in making a real difference to people’s lives. Therefore, we will continue to strive to be a ‘fair and equitable’ organisation as outlined in our Corporate Plan 2018-22.

To achieve this, our plan sets out the key steps we will take over the next four years to strengthen and advance equality across Blaenau Gwent. The steps build on the progress we have already made and will continue to support in order to enable meaningful change.

Our six equalities objectives are:

• We will be an organisation who ensures fairness and equality is in everything that we do.
• We will be an equal opportunity employer with a workforce that values equality and diversity.
• We will support children and young people, particularly those with protected characteristics, to achieve their learning ambitions.
• We will promote and support safe, friendly and cohesive communities.
• We will ensure there is meaningful involvement with people who have protected characteristics and key stakeholders that represent their interests.
• We will strive to tackle inequality caused by poverty for people who have protected characteristics.

We would like to thank all those who have been actively involved in developing this plan and look forward to working with you to make it a success.

Equality and Diversity and the Equality Act 2010

We recognise that people might suffer discrimination and be disadvantaged for many reasons. It also has both a moral and statutory obligation to reflect the needs of a diverse community through its service provision and as an employer.

It is committed to promoting equality and diversity across all of our services and ensuring that they are accessible to all. The Act puts fairness at the heart of society, harmonises discrimination law, strengthens the law to support progress on Equalities and devolves the responsibility for discrimination to Wales.

The Act consolidated the previous 116 different pieces of equality legislation and gives everyone the right not to be treated less favourably by public authorities. The protected characteristics (strands) to which the General public sector equality duty apply are:

1. Age
2. Disability
3. Gender reassignment
4. Marriage and Civil Partnership
5. Pregnancy and maternity
6. Race
7. Religion and belief
8. Sex
9. Sexual orientation

The Welsh Language is not part of the Equality Act as it is covered by its own specific piece of legislation – The Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011 – but is no less important.
There is the need to have due regard to: 

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• Advance Equality of opportunity
• Foster good relations
• Covers employment and the provision of goods and services (covers both staff and the public who access services)

Specific Duties have been created to support compliance of the Equality Duty.

1. Setting equality objectives
2. Consultation and Involvement
3. Assessing impact (Equality Impact Assessments)
4. Reporting progress against objectives
5. Gender pay and job segregation
6. Public Sector Procurement
7. How inspection supports the equality agenda;
8. Reporting by the Welsh Ministers.