Secretarial/WP/Corporate/HFRA/SE Regional Equality & Diversity StrategyError! Bookmark not defined.

26 August 2005

APPENDIX A

South East Regional Equality and Diversity Strategy

13 July 2005

To invite the Regional Management Board to agree the proposed vision statement for equality & diversity.

Secondly, to nominate the Chairman of the RMB as the regional champion for equality and diversity.

Finally, to agree to the creation of a regional equality and diversity working team, reporting to a Principal Officer with responsibilities for equality & diversity across the region, via the Human Resources Development Group

Equality & Diversity has previously not been included within any of the South East regional work streams. Consequently the topic has become marginalised slightly, at a time when there is ever increasing priority placed upon equality & diversity issues from the centre.

Several other RMBs have already agreed to support the introduction of a regional equality and diversity strategy and this paper seeks the support of the RMB to do the same for the South East region.

The paper sets out the context of why effective management of equality and diversity is key to our business, not only in reducing the risk of litigation and bad reputation, but highlights the clear link between effective performance management of equality & diversity and improved service delivery.

The business case is set out within the strategy, and highlights the benefits of developing a creative and innovative culture. It identifies the alignment of equality & diversity with corporate and social responsibilities and lists some of the benefits of a regional strategy including:

¬ The sharing of limited resources

¬ Benchmarking best practice

¬ Standardisation of policy & practice

¬ Reduced vulnerability & potential for litigation

¬ Improved Service Delivery

The equality and diversity strategy has been consulted on with members of the HRDG who have agreed to support the proposed implementation

That the RMB notes the report and agrees to the proposal for the introduction of a regional equality & diversity strategy including:

¬ The adoption of the proposed vision statement

¬ The nomination of the Chairman as a regional equality & diversity champion

¬ The creation of a regional working group reporting to a nominated principal officer with the reference for equality & diversity via the HRDG

To ensure consistency of approach and sharing of limited resources across the region in order to;

¬ Provide clear leadership for equality & diversity

¬ Ensure effective performance management of equality & diversity throughout the region

¬ Ensure compliance with legislation, best practice, and reduce vulnerability to litigation

¬ Improve service delivery to our diverse communities

LEAD/CONTACT OFFICER: DO Andy Kettle

TELEPHONE NUMBER: 07900057846

EMAIL: [email protected]

BACKGROUND PAPERS: Regional Strategy Document (Attached)

RMB/16/05

CFOA South East Regional

Equality & Diversity Strategy

Purpose of this Paper

The purpose of this paper is to advise the Regional Management Board of the importance of diversity and to seek the approval of the RMB to nominate the Chair of the RMB as the senior level champion to take ownership of the vision and provide a leading voice on equality & diversity in the South East.

The RMB are additionally invited to support the development of a regional equality & diversity strategy and associated action plan.

Why is Equality & Diversity Important for our Business

Over the past 10 years there has been a growing acceptance that equality & diversity are no longer words that are merely in vogue, but key business issues that act as a fundamental differentiator between organisations trying to attract and retain quality staff and service a broad customer or community population.

The basic concept of managing equality & diversity accepts that the workforce consists of a diverse population of people. The diversity consists of visible and non-visible difference, which include factors such as sex, age, background, race, disability, religion, sexual orientation, personality and work style. It is founded on the premise that harnessing these differences will create a productive environment in which everybody feels valued, where their skills are being fully utilised and in which organisations goals are met.

Business Drivers

Some of the main business drivers for the service to adopt strategies relating to equality & diversity are:

· Managing risk and reputation

· Appeal to an inclusive customer base

· Enhance individual and business performance

· Developing a creative and innovative culture

· Attraction, retention and development of staff

One of the key components of a diversity strategy remains the need to be a fair and equitable employer. We must ensure that internal policies and procedures reflect the requirements of the law. Litigation proceedings are still a key area in the management of risk and reputation. While the percentage of successful applicants at Employment Tribunals is 12 per cent and average awards sit at about £20,000, this hides the considerable reputational risk to organisations, irrespective of a successful defence against any actions brought against them.

Additionally, there is an ever increasing threat of litigation from equality bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission amongst Public Authorities who have ineffective arrangements in place.

Business Benefits

A regional approach to equality and diversity with strong leadership by the Regional Management Board will demonstrate a clear public commitment to equality & diversity, and maximise the opportunities for realising the business benefits. The implementation of a regional strategy will ensure:

· A standardised approach to development and implementation of equality & diversity policies

· Efficient sharing of the limited resources available in the region

· Benchmarking best practice and avoidance of duplication

· Compliance with equality & diversity legislation

· Reduction of legal vulnerability due to consistency of approach and adoption of best practice

· Reduced costs and increased capacity for a range of positive action initiatives, including regional career fairs and cultural events

· Better understanding of, and engagement with minority communities

· Improved service delivery to our communities

Developing a Creative and Innovative Culture

The benefits of a diverse workforce are the value of having different people in the team, department, brigade or region. The freshness and richness that difference brings to team, department or strategy meetings is valuable and on the whole leads to better quality decisions and outputs. The other obvious benefit is that a diverse team understands diverse customers and communities.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The South East Regional Management Board represents a large employer through constituent authorities with a workforce in excess of 8000 employees, and has a duty to ensure good corporate social responsibility (CSR)

There is naturally a strong alignment between the agendas of diversity and CSR, and the service has firmly positioned equality & diversity at the heart of its CSR strategy with the adoption of it's Core Values. Brigades are not only expected to be fair and equitable, but to take greater responsibility for the welfare of employees and to manage areas such as:

· Work life balance

· Dignity at Work, Harassment and Bullying

· Workplace stress and absenteeism

· Long-hours and presenteeism

· Unreasonable workloads, timescales

When individuals and organisations begin to see evidence of the industry driving forward the CSR agenda with real demonstrable change, this undoubtedly enhances the attractiveness of that industry both as an employer and service provider.

Leadership - The Chief Officer/Chief Executive and the Chair of the Authority/RMB

There is little doubt that the most important component of any strategic change intervention is visible, demonstrable, top-level commitment to that change. The need for this commitment is common knowledge to most progressive equality & diversity practitioners. Progress can still be made without this commitment, but it will tend to be through piecemeal initiatives lacking co-ordination and will eventually lose momentum, drive and passion.

The correlation between leading-edge organisations in equality & diversity and the effective leadership by the CO/CEO, Chair of the Authority/RMB, Members and Principal Officers is very strong. They all have a corporate and personal responsibility to commit to the desired organisational culture, values, leadership style and personal attitude required and play a major part in mainstreaming the equality & diversity agenda.

Equality & Diversity Strategy

Diversity is a fundamental business issue and requires long term planning and commitment to effect real personal and organisational change. To facilitate this the strategy will outline:

· Our vision statement

· Our values

· Our Objectives

An Equality Standard for Modernisation

To assist in meeting our Equality & Diversity Strategy as a region, we have adopted the Equality Standard for Local Government and this will be the major driver for mainstreaming equality practice. Working with the five levels of the Standard will allow services to introduce a comprehensive and systematic approach to managing equality and diversity in all aspects of policy making, service delivery and employment.

Best Value and CPA

This principle of fairness is central to the Government's agenda to modernise fire services and is embraced in the concept of `Best Value', which lies at the heart of this agenda. A range of BVPIs are already in place to measure our performance in mainstreaming equality and diversity through Implementation of the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG) framework, and Race Equality Scheme which is a requirement under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Additionally, the Audit Commission introduced a new equality and diversity diagnostic into CPA prior to recent assessments. It is important to recognise that equality & diversity performance against the BVPIs and equality standards will be scrutinised in much greater detail in the future.

Measuring Success

It is important to identify how the introduction of a regional equality & diversity strategy will be measured and to identify key deliverables that will be achieved through regional collaboration. Some of these will include

¬ Clear strategic leadership that assists constituent authorities in prioritising equality & diversity within a range of conflicting demands

¬ Introduction of a framework for managing equality & diversity and a mechanism for implementation

¬ The capacity to maximise limited individual resources to deliver robust and consistent regional equality & diversity policies and practices

¬ Reduced risk of litigation and bad reputation due to the benefits identified above

¬ Contributing to progress against diversity targets set out within the Fire Services National Framework document

¬ Standardised training for all our managers and employees to equip them with the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding of equality & diversity

¬ Delivery of an equality impact assessment process and associated training for managers and policy makers

¬ Provision of guidance regarding all procurement and contracted services to ensure compliance with requirements of the RR(A)A and Race Equality Schemes

¬ Delivery of strong branding and a positive public image to all our diverse communities

¬ Delivery of a mentoring scheme to support employees from currently under-represented groups and contribute positively to recruitment, retention and progression of under-represented people

¬ Delivery of a peer review model and implementation of peer review assessments within the region, against other Fire & Rescue Services, and organisations seen to be "best in class"

¬ Contribute to improved performance against BVPIs and CPA ratings

Our Vision Statement

`We will work continually to create a culture, in accordance with our fire service values, which recognises all the differences that employees and communities bring. We will do this by adopting fair and equitable employment policies and ensuring equality & diversity is mainstreamed throughout our service delivery. This will ensure we provide the best possible service to all our individual communities. '

The RMB are invited to agree:

· The vision, as an appropriate vision for the region

· The Chair of the RMB should be the champion for equality & diversity for the region to support the strategy and the aims and objectives described in Appendix 1

· The creation of a regional equality & diversity working team, to report to the principal officer responsible for diversity across the region via the HRDG

Appendix 1

Aims and Objectives

1. Leadership and Vision

¬ To identify a senior level champion for leading the equality & diversity strategy

¬ To secure top level ownership for this planned programme

¬ To develop and cascade an equality & diversity vision statement

¬ To secure specialist professional advice on equality and diversity legislation, practice and issues from within existing resources and to ensure consistency of policy application and reduced legal vulnerability

2. Audit and Analysis of the organisation

¬ To develop a regional peer review model for auditing equality & diversity

¬ To establish the present position of the organisation in relation to compliance with equality & diversity best practice

¬ To produce a risk analysis report for the Principal Officer with the Equality & Diversity reference across the region

3. Culture

¬ To communicate the core values of the Service

¬ To share best practice on introducing the values

¬ To contribute positively to the wider change agenda within the region

4. Policy Development and Planning

¬ To publish robust engaging policies and cascade across the region:

¬ Equality and Diversity Policy

¬ Dignity at Work, Harassment and Bullying Policy and Procedure

¬ Religion and Cultural Needs Policy

¬ To proactively respond to changes in legislation

¬ To mainstream diversity into the corporate planning process

5. Recruitment, Retention and Progression

¬ To implement the Firefighter Selection Tests in order to meet our statutory duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and other equality legislation, and to ensure a legally defensible recruitment & selection process is in place.

¬ To implement a rolling programme of recruitment

¬ To explore the effectiveness of regional recruitment and positive action initiatives

¬ To develop a career structure to meet the needs of the organisation through IPDS

6. Training and Education

¬ To integrate equality & diversity into mainstream training and development programmes

¬ To collaborate on training initiatives in order to increase general awareness amongst managers and the wider workforce to understand Equality & Diversity issues in order to secure consistency of knowledge and understanding

¬ Evaluate instructors/supplier training and secure best value

¬ To effect behaviour change in individuals to reinforce the principles of inclusivity

¬ To mainstream equality and diversity throughout the IPDS

7. Service Delivery and Customer Care

¬ To implement equality and diversity impact `needs/requirements' assessments for all policies, functions and services, and ensure compliance with the Race Equality Scheme and Equality Standard

¬ To review services including the procurement function and all contracted services and partnership arrangements to ensure compliance with the Race Equality Scheme and Equality Standard

8. Communication and Consultation

¬ Undertake audit of existing internal and external communication channels to ensure compliance and inclusivity is assured

¬ To develop a robust communication plan to support the roll out of the equality & diversity strategy

¬ To ensure equality & diversity is a standard item on meeting agendas and reports

¬ Ensure communications imagery and graphics are inclusive and reflect the words within the document

¬ To consult with the community, regulatory bodies and under-represented groups on service delivery standards and proposed changes

9. Resources

¬ To ensure required resources are available with the skills and profile to help roll out the equality & diversity programme

10. Support, Facilities and Conditions of Service

¬ To provide effective mentoring and support systems for all employees

¬ To provide facilities to maintain privacy and dignity for employees and the community

¬ To create family and culture friendly work practices to support employees work life balance as a key part of the IRMP and linked to the HR Strategy

11. Measurement

¬ To ensure services provide a reliable and effective database and tracking system which enables measurement of progress to take place

¬ Commitment to making progress in relation to the Equality Standard for Local Government

¬ CPA

¬ Race Equality Schemes

¬ To introduce a regional equality & diversity peer/audit group to monitor progress

12. External Profile

¬ To profile Service's within the region as a `best of class' in diversity to enhance the organisation and reputation

¬ To benchmark against other Fire & Rescue Services outside the South East region, and other organisations who are seen as `best in class'

¬ To promote the regions development and progress in the field of Equality and Diversity