Equality and diversity - facts and figures
In line with the Equality Act, the Council has developed equality objectives. The reporting mechanisms for these objectives is constantly being developed to help us ensure that we are promoting equality and complying with equality legislation.
Our workforce data
It is seen as good practice that information about the makeup of our workforce is published. This way the Council can show that it is a fair and inclusive employer, committed to all employees in terms of access and opportunities.
The information is used to look at whether our workforce is representative of the population of the borough - which in turn helps provide better service delivery - and also allows us to check that we are not discriminating against groups of staff in our policies or practices.
Equality monitoring, facts and figures
What happens to the information?
None of the information is traceable to the individual but reports of aggregated (brought together) data are produced each year detailing workforce characteristics.
The information is used to look at whether our workforce is representative of the population of the borough – which in turn helps provide better service delivery - and also allows us to check that we are not discriminating against groups of staff in our policies or practices. Most discrimination in employment is likely to be unintentional. If we do not collect and analyse information, we will not understand where we might be getting things wrong and will therefore not be able to put things right.
Confidentiality
Information gathered is kept confidential. All equality information is personal and sensitive and steps are taken to ensure that only people who need to work with the information in order to produce the reports have access to it.
Who is interested in this information
HR use data to improve processes and set improvement targets. This information also feeds into the performance reporting cycle.
Gathering equality information and using it to improve equality in the workplace is also supported by a number of staff and stakeholder groups for example:
- The Disability Advisory Group
- The Diverse Communities Partnership
These groups are interested in seeing how we perform and improve the representative make-up of our workforce.
Facts and figures - knowing your communities
There are many different sources of information that you can use to build up a local picture of the people who use your services.
In addition to your own service monitoring, other gathered information provides vital pieces of the jigsaw to identify:
- Who your customers are
- Whether there are any apparent gaps or inequality in service provision
- How best to streamline your services to meet your service users needs
National / local sources, information shared with key partners as well as your own monitoring analysis will begin to help you build up a picture of the communities of Trafford. This information feeds into business planning processes as well as being an integral part of conducting an Equality Impact Assessment.
Key information about Trafford residents is available on the Trafford Data Lab website. Ward Profiles are also available which contain data on some key equality strands.
Contact
Phone us on 0161 912 4605 or 0161 912 4473.