Equalities - assessment and consultation
Equality impact assessments
The Equality Act 2010 states we must:
not discriminate on equality grounds,
advance equality of opportunity in our community, and
promote good relations.
In order to meet these duties the Council carries out an equality impact assessment on any proposals before making a decision. If any adverse impact is identified we consider whether the proposed decision could be changed to avoid the problem, or whether it can be justified.
Monitoring
What is monitoring?
So that we know how well we are doing, we monitor the impact of our single equality scheme and various equality related policies. Monitoring means looking at the impact on the different groups protected under equality legislation.
Monitoring data
Equality monitoring is used for our employees and applicant for jobs
Why should you fill in monitoring forms?
Unless we have information on the equality profile of our service users we can't assess their needs and see whether certain groups experience barriers to accessing services. The information you provide will be held securely and confidentially and only be used for the purposes of improving our services to the local community.
Community engagement
An important part of delivering our equality work is finding out the views of the different people who live and work in Guildford. We believe that the people who know how we could improve our services for the better are those who use them. Councillors are a valuable source of information about the local community and regularly present the views of people in their wards.
What have we done?
We have contacted a range of community groups to invite them to get involved in developing the Council's equality work. We have also set up a citizens' panel which is a group of local people, representative of the community, who attend meetings to discuss issues and respond to questionnaires. In addition, we welcome comments from any member of the community by using our contact details on this page.