Equality Impact Assessment Service Plans 2008/09
LAA Theme Names	Enterprise and Economic Development Safer Stronger Communities
Lead Officer completing EQIA	David Lawrence Divisional Director - Tourism Leisure Cultural Ext: 5385

Q1. How will this plan narrow the gap between equalities groups?

We will use the Council's Heritage assets to generate funds (in excess of £2million) that can be released into the Council's statutory programmes of activity. In addition for each service, we will seek out partnerships, external funding and grants in order that we can invest additional/new resources into our programmes - whilst supporting other Departments.

We will be open & transparent in the way we invest resources - providing opportunities for organisations to share our objectives and delivery programmes. We will report our activities at the end of each financial year and post the report on the Council's web site - along with the reports of our contractors and partners.

This process of: monitoring, reporting and accounting for our decisions and service quality will characterise our approach addressing equalities.

Background.

Despite a generally prosperous picture, small pockets of deprivation exist across the area with five super output areas (Twerton West, Kingsmead, Fox Hill North and Whiteway) in the bottom 20% most deprived neighbourhoods in the country. Three (Kingsmead, Bath Central and Victoria Park) feature in the bottom 10% for levels of crime deprivation and one (Whiteway) is in the bottom 2% for Education, Skills and Training.

Educational attainment and achievement is lower across B&NES for certain BME groups (Black African KS1/KS4, Black Caribbean KS3 and Black Other KS2) and for children in care.

We will ensure that different perspectives of our diverse communities are taken into account when designing, developing and delivering services that will affect them. By understanding our customers and responding to their needs we will identify who is using our services and what they need and expect from the council. By the very nature of the work that this service plan delivers, it will impact on the majority of residents, and those people that work and visit Bath & North East Somerset.

We have adopted a cross cutting approach across all the theme blocks working in the partnership with the residents, the voluntary and private sectors to deliver;

• Increased access to our parks, recreation and culture
  
• Understanding who is and who is not accessing our services by surveys, Voice Box and wide consultation
  
• Widening the contribution of users, volunteers and `Friends of', groups to enhance our services whilst ensuring these groups are more representative of the community they serve

We have ambitious stretch targets such as: increasing the number of those people who are active users of our services in our libraries, running active lifestyles & arts programmes and contributing to the reduction in the number of young people who enter into the criminal justice system.

Active Lifestyles is a good example of how we can target resources in an effort to close the gap between communities by focussing upon the issues that are indicators of need - especially in those wards of B&NES where life expectation is 10 years less than the norm for the remaining wards.

The Active Lifestyles project works upon ensuring individuals remain active and thus more mobile and independent into later life. We are working with the PCT in order to extend this programme into 2009/10.

The Libraries are a source of learning and knowledge exchange. We are keen to promote reading and literacy in order to encourage further learning, skill development and academic achievement - in order to deliver future employment and access to further education. We will focus staff resources and the reader development programme in the Super Output Areas and particularly the area of low Educational Achievement in order to address this. Our mini libraries in Children's Centres provide a starting point.

Generally B&NES is a low crime area, however crime, fear of crime and victimisation are disproportionately concentrated in the discreet areas of deprivation, where these issues are prevalent. Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour are clear local and national priorities, and narrowing the gap between areas of Bath, Keynsham, Radstock and Midsomer Norton is a key target.

Our Sports Programmes are aimed at Youth Centres and Sports Clubs in `community settings' that are used, in part, to address a positive diversion (of young peoples interest) into sport, however the `Breakthrough' project also addresses poor educational attainment due to low levels of confidence and social engagement - this will be extended in 2008-9. Attempting to tackling the root of the problem.

Behind the statistics that identify Twerton West, Kingsmead, Fox Hill North and Whiteway as Super Output Areas lies a history of disadvantage including unemployment, poor education achievement, school exclusion, low pay, poor health, and poor housing. Behaviours arising from these risk factors are often anti-social. We will help narrow this gap by reducing the number of young people from these communities who enter the criminal justice system. We will also improve outcomes for young people on Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme, this programme is an alternative to custody and its improvement will lead to fewer young people entering custody.

We will encourage, support and work with community and voluntary sector groups who will deliver elements of the prevention and diversion work with young people. Local volunteers will help to support young people on programmes designed to reduce the risk of offending and will support young people on community reparation projects.

The number of BME communities is growing. 78 different languages are spoken in our Primary Schools - this is moving on from a concentration upon the Chinese and Polish Communities that characterised Bath & NES in the recent past. In addition we subscribe to `Bright Books' as a way of securing a wide range of reading materials in minority languages, from the countries of origin.

The population is ageing and additionally, there are identifiable `communities of interest' such as those people with Disabilities who may be less mobile than other groups. We will tailor our services to ensure there is both opportunity and access to services that are appropriate, well planned and delivered in such a way as to ensure that individuals feel valued.

People with Learning Difficulties (PwLD) fare significantly less well than mainstream residents with many of the same deprivation issues as those suffered in the geographic neighbourhoods described above. The number of PwLD is increasing as are the numbers of children with profound learning difficulties.

Exercise and social interaction outside of a school, or care location, is important, particularly in circumstances that protect venerable children and adults, whilst offering respect and the prospect of achievement.

We will work with individuals and groups to provide opportunity in Para Olympic and Special Olympic Sports and to create appropriate opportunities to enjoy the other services the Division provides.

We will invest resources in organisations that can help us achieve these objectives. Our Arts Development Programme is a good example of using investment strategies to drive particular community outcomes through partner organisations.

Q2. How will you demonstrate over time that the gap has been narrowed?

There are a number of key performance indicators across the plan which will measure the narrowing of the gap.

• We will rigorously monitor the performance of our services through QPR, Service Level Agreement - monitoring, and statistical analysis.
  
• Reduce first time entrants into the youth criminal justice system
  
• As new questions in Voice Box as an indicator that we are meeting and delivery the whole community's needs and aspirations
  
• Setting baselines on some perception measures on anti social behaviour utilising the LGUS survey and running a series of local focus groups to ascertain how we can contribute to diverting young people into positive activities that reduce others' fear of crime.
  
• Increase in customer satisfaction within the target groups
  
• Create groups that are representative of the true communities served by a public library or sports facility - seeking to engage and involve those communities not currently using services.
  
• Supporting People monitoring the services they provide under a quality assessment framework which examines core service objectives, including Fair Access, Diversity and Inclusion. Monitoring our partners' commitment to equalities issues, the extent to which their services are accessible to diverse groups of people and the extent to which they seek to include marginalised groups.

 

Q3. How will this plan promote community cohesion?

The Local Strategic Partnership has established to drive the partnership agenda for strong communities and a sense of well-being in neighbourhoods and the TLC service plan will assist in the delivery of this by;

• Community cohesion will be promoted by narrowing the gap in equalities groups, and slowing the momentum of youths entering the criminal justice system due to lack of opportunities. It will promote cohesion by reversing the sense of fatalism that exists that nothing can be done to reduce this social inequality. It will galvanise the good will and high expectation that also exists in BME communities to these young people, empowering the community to take part in the solutions to lead to youth achievement - not crime.
  
• developing inter-faith and inter-generational projects to improve interaction/cohesion i.e via libraries & arts programmes
  
• utilising methods (community empowerment networks, community coaches, PCT, outreach, police) to identify issues and solutions within communities
  
• ongoing celebrations of the diversity of our communities i.e. Festivals, Fringe, Village Fairs, Radstock Festival, Midsomer Norton Mardi Gras, Keynsham Victorian Evening.
  
• Involving our project partners, especially User Groups and Non Governmental Organisations, where there are huge opportunities to increase community engagement and inclusion by enabling them to be more proactive in site management and development, especially the provision of facilities where these do not exist.
  
• We will challenge prejudice which affects all the equality groups. We will promote equality of opportunity for these groups when accessing services. We will ensure appropriate training is provided for staff and partners, including racial incident training and for other types of incidents such as homophobic or disablist.
  
• Supporting People services aim to promote independent living by ensuring that vulnerable adults have the physical abilities, necessary skills or support to enable them to sustain their own, (and as far as practicable), independent accommodation. Our contribution is in providing access to leisure and social activities which promote social cohesion.

 

Q4. How will you demonstrate over time that community cohesion has improved?

The plan will be able to demonstrate that community cohesion has improved by;

• Achievement of targets, such as the Youth Offending Team's audit.
  
• Use of Voice Box results and other residents' survey & perception measures.
  
• The use of focus groups specific to the Cultural Block of services - particularly including young people, the elderly, BME groups and those with disabilities.
  
• Libraries, Sports Organisations, Museums and Sports Centres that survive and prosper with active and visible involvement of all users and the whole community in and around them - improvements made can only be sustained if those who benefit from them are involved from the start and have 'bought in' to the whole process; the assessment will challenge the service and partners to show how the community is involved and included, and that they are committed to improvements being made in partnership 
  
• We will challenge each of the services to indicate how well a particular service is meeting its objectives. The five outcome areas are:

- Improving Economic Well Being

- Enjoying and Achieving

- Being Healthy

- Staying Safe

- Making a Positive Contribution

Although improvements in community cohesion can be measured in each of the areas, some of the areas have more of a community cohesion focus than others. The "Enjoying and Achieving" area measures the success of our support services in helping an individual to access training or education, accessing cultural, faith or informal learning activities, obtaining unpaid work or work experience, including volunteering, and/or maintaining contact with friends, groups, family or external services.

Q5. What are the top five equalities outcomes that this plan should Deliver in relation to the Council's priorities e.g. Delivering high quality services that focus on individuals' needs and represent value for money Tackling inequality and social inclusion, and Engaging more closely with Bath and North East Somerset's citizens so that people's needs are listened to and acted upon

• Reduce crime and fear of crime.
  
• Developing `Friends', User groups & support groups that are representative of the community
  
• Contribute to an Older Person's Outreach Service - guided by Social Services.
  
• Developing databases and monitoring systems which are able to collect information pertaining to identified equality groups.

 

Q6. What performance indicators will you use to measure the outcomes?

• Number of project and initiatives supported by local communities.
  
• Number of individuals engaged in direct programmes
  
• Number of individuals engaged in programmes funded by partners.
  
• Number of target initiatives undertaken by Heritage and Museums.
  
• % Reduction of young people entering into the criminal justice system
  
• Internal targets to support Libraries and Active Leisure/Sport LAA stretch target;

- Number referrals in the month the target -

- % of referrals resulting in Individual Plans, target - 90%

- Hours young people engaged

- Successful achievement of QPR indicators.

Q7. What do you think are the main risks/concerns that could hinder the effective implementation of equalities and diversity issues within the Theme Service Plan?

• Performance management - intelligent monitoring of the indicators to ensure we are narrowing the equalities gaps
  
• Lack of human resource to deliver the equality and diversity (E&D) agenda
  
• Actual projects not sufficiently resourced to deliver solutions to equality and diversity issues
  
• Lack of understanding and involvement of community leaders in projects, in order to identify opportunities to deliver the agenda or to engage with currently excluded or underrepresented groups
  
• Secure funding to ensure potential synergies are explored and exploited such as the resources created through the anti-social behaviour agenda.
  
• E&D training for all staff
  
• Delivering projects to a diverse and transient population
  
• Robust research and consultation
  
  
  DL 14. 05.08