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Hastings Council provides a range of important services to the people of Hastings. It is also a community leader and one of the Borough's largest employers. It is committed to continually improving its actions to foster equality of opportunity both as an employer and as a service provider. The Council has adopted an equal opportunities policy statement which says:
"Hastings Borough Council will actively seek to reflect the diversity of people in Hastings and intends that its service provision and employment policy reflect the needs and priorities of an increasingly diverse population.
We actively seek solutions that advance the capacity and resources of people discriminated against in our society. No service user, employee or job applicant will be discriminated against, directly or indirectly, harassed or receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, disability, marital status, family commitments, sexual orientation, age, HIV status, religious or political beliefs, social class, trade union activity or irrelevant spent conviction.
The Council is committed to the fostering of good community relations in the Borough and will work through its own services and the partnerships it is involved in to promote equality of opportunity to all."
In order to translate the policy statement into actions, the Council has produced this Equalities Strategy and action plan to cover the next three years.
Hastings Borough is the most deprived district in the South East Region and ranked the 27th most deprived District in England. 5 of its wards are amongst the 10% most deprived in the country with a further 6 wards in the top 20%. Equality and social inclusion form an integral part of all council and partnership working. The Council values and celebrates the many different communities in the Borough and wants to make sure that they are included in all aspects of life in Hastings. The Council will tackle discrimination in all its forms, and we will work closely with partners to increase the participation of everybody in their local community.
As a public body the Council is under a legal duty to tackle discrimination both as an employer and as a service provider and this strategy and action plan is intended to enable the council to demonstrate compliance with those duties. Under the Race Relations Act 1976 as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment)Act 2000 we are required when we undertake our functions to aim to:
Our aim is to make equality a central part of the way we work, by putting it at the centre of policy-making, service delivery, regulation, enforcement and employment practice.
We will do this by:
Under the specific duty on employment, we will monitor existing staff, and applicants for jobs, promotion and training, by their racial group.
We will also monitor and analyse, by racial group:
We will publish these ethnic monitoring results every year.
We have produced an Action plan which addresses these issues for other groups as well so that you can see what the Council proposes to do to foster equal opportunities generally.
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The Council will consult widely on this Strategy and plan. It will use the consultation process for the Local Performance Plan. We will use all our existing consultation methods, in particular the Citizen's Panel, to consult about the strategy, and we will publish the results of that consultation, and insert them to inform future action.
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December to March - Review policies & functions for impact on equalities
April to May 2002 - Consult on results of review
April 2002 - Contribute resources to county wide racist incident reporting
Equalities identified as one of 7 key issues for the council in the Local Performance Plan
Build equality targets into all service delivery plans for 2002/2003
May 2002 - Council adopt Race Equality Scheme and general Equalities Strategy
September 2002 - Publish Equalities Scheme
Publish results of review of policies and functions and impact on race equality
October 2002 - Identify staff training needs
November 2002 - Provide staff training
April 2003 - Have in place equalities monitoring systems for employment and service provision
Present results of work on equalities in Local Performance Plan
April 2004 and on ongoing basis - Produce annual report on results of monitoring and proposed action
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This page last updated: 23/03/2004