Agenda item

The Service Director Democratic Services & Communications outlined the pre scrutiny opportunity provided to Members on the annual equality monitoring report 2019/20, thus providing Scrutiny with an opportunity to feedback its comments to Cabinet at its meeting held on the 25^th March 2021.

The Diversity and Inclusion Manager presented the Council’s annual equality monitoring report 2019/20 advising that the report contains progress made in year 2019/20 in meeting the equality objectives contained in Council’s Strategic Equality Plan.

A Member highlighted the importance of responding to recent events in the media, and the need to address the safety of women in public spaces. A motion was put forward that a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, sitting in its role as the Council’s Crime and Disorder Committee be convened as a matter of urgency, to consider safety and equality for women in the community and to invite relevant partners to the meeting. The motion was unanimously agreed with a view to convening a meeting of the Crime & Disorder Committee.

Members discussed the Annual Equality Report and felt that the key reporting requirements in respect of employment monitoring reporting, compliance with the General duty and the Council’s commitment to the principles of equality and diversity had been fulfilled. In response to a query regarding the impact of Covid-19 on issues such as hate crimes, the Diversity and Inclusion Manager advised that the next annual report would reflect any impact on this area as a result of the pandemic and acknowledged that providing local figures post Covid-19 would be useful for the committee to review.

Members sought assurance that work was being undertaken in respect of a

number of areas to improve equality and diversity. The Service Director,

Democratic Services & Communications advised that the Democratic Services

Working Group: Diversity in Democracy, had recently been established to support the Council in achieving diversity in democracy ahead of the 2022 local government elections to encourage participation in principal authorities and Community and Town Councils. It was noted that an action plan had been developed to further improve the diversity of the Council. The Service Director advised that this is a fast-moving agenda and a high priority for Welsh Government and referred to a paper which was due to be reported to the WLGA Council seeking cross party endorsement for changes to be realised post 2022.

The Diversity and Inclusion Manager outlined the issues of closing the

gender pay gap and the council’s new performance review process for staff

which is being incrementally rolled-out to ensure effective implementation and

understanding and also the ongoing work to develop an action plan which

will support women in leadership programme, a particular strand of work which

would be shared with the committee in due course.

The Committee raised concern regarding the long-term impact of emotional abuse and noted the actions contained within the report, which stated that as part of Education’s Well-being Strategy a programme for schools would be developed which would raise awareness of emotional abuse in relationships.

Committee also raised issues in relation to the collection and analysis of data for bullying incidents in schools; it was reported that additional relevant guidance has now been circulated to all schools for monitoring to be undertaken in this area. Issues were also raised in relation to the Welsh Language and the barriers of awareness raising events given the large geographical area of the Borough.

Following discussion of the Annual Equality Report 2019/20 it was RESOLVED:

1.To acknowledge the contents of the Annual Equality Report 2019/21;

2.That Members’ comments form part of the reported feedback the Cabinet will receive, at its meeting to be held on the 25^th March 2021; and

3.That an Overview & Scrutiny Committee, sitting in its role as the Council’s designated Crime & Disorder Committee, is convened at the earliest convenience to consider the safety and inequalities experienced by women in community spaces.