Have your Say on the Draft Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Strategy, 2010 - 2013

This draft strategy shows what the Council will do to make Leicestershire a place where people are treated with fairness and respect.  It also shows how we will make ensure that everyone can access high quality services designed to meet their individual needs.

It explains how we will promote equality of opportunity, tackle discrimination and foster good relationships between different community groups.  It also covers what we will do to support equality of opportunity within our workforce.

Our current Equality and Diversity Strategy was produced in 2008 and comes to an end this year (2010).  We have produced a new draft strategy in close collaboration with our workforce, our external partners and stakeholders from the statutory, voluntary and community sectors.

The new draft strategy takes account of equalities best practice, new (or significantly changed) legislation – such as the Equality Bill - and the requirements of the new Equality Framework, which requires authorities to work to a much broader definition of equality and to focus much more on achieving positive equality outcomes for people.  Whilst our current strategy does extend to age, religion or belief, and sexual orientation, we recognised the need to strengthen our approach in these areas and the new draft strategy has addressed this.

Additionally, there is an increasing emphasis being placed on the Human Rights agenda and its link to equalities and diversity.  The expectation is that authorities make much more explicit what they are doing to ensure people's human rights are met.  We decided that the most appropriate way of doing this was to incorporate human rights into our new draft strategy.

The Council would very much welcome your views on the new draft strategy by the end of March 2010, which is available to download in both Word and PDF format below:

You can send us your views by email to equality@leics.gov.uk, by phone to 0116 305 6029/7446, by Minicom to 0116 305 6048 or in writing to the address below:

Equalities and Diversity Team
Chief Executive’s Department
Policy and Partnerships
County Hall, Glenfield
Leicestershire LE3 8RA

Many thanks in advance for your views.