Local Authorities

Equality Works has worked for many years with a large number of local authorities throughout the UK on a wide range of projects. The Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG), launched in 2001 and reviewed in 2005/06, is an important measure adopted by 90% of all local authorities. We have helped many councils to achieve an appropriate level within the Standard, in particular supporting those seeking to meet their target of external assessment for Levels 3 and 5.

One client that we have worked with over a number of years is the London Borough of Lewisham, one of the first authorities in the UK to achieve Level 5 of the ESLG. Lewisham’s approach to equality has always been to address issues in a proactive way and we have assisted them through consultancy, training and general guidance in this area.

Other local authority clients have asked for support in producing their Annual Workforce and Equalities Monitoring Report, with developing action plans, facilitating staff forums and producing corporate guidance handbooks. We have designed, developed and run a wide range of training programmes for all levels of staff, from front-line staff to Council Members and Officers. This has included harassment training, recruitment and selection training, Equality Impact Assessment training and leadership training for black and minority ethnic (BME) personnel.

As well as the case studies below, read more about how one of our clients approaches this area:

Read an interview with Clare Slater from Ryedale District Council

Clients in this area include:

City of London Corporation
Crawley Borough Council
Cumbria County Council
Hertfordshire County Council
Islington Council
Kent County Council
London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
London Borough of Hillingdon
London Borough of Lewisham
London Borough of Redbridge
London Borough of Richmond-Upon-Thames
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Medway Council
North East Derbyshire Council
North East Lincolnshire Council
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
Ryedale District Council
South Lakeland District Council
Southwark Council
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
Wandsworth Council
West Sussex County Council
Westminster City Council

Case studies:

Cumbria County Council: Equality and Diversity

Cumbria County Council engaged Equality Works to undertake an extensive Equality and Diversity programme which provided training across all levels, from Members to front line staff; encompassed issues from bullying and harassment to Equality Impact Assessment and corporate strategy; assisted in the progression from Level 1 to Level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG) and successfully challenged perceptions of Equality and Diversity in an area where they had not traditionally been high on the agenda.

Westminster City Council: Equalities and Diversity Training

Equality Works was commissioned by Westminster City Council to develop and conduct equalities and diversity training for 2 separate groups of staff:

Team Leaders, Supervisors and Professional Practitioners; and
Operational Managers, Senior Technical/Specialist Roles and Divisional Heads.

The overall aims of both training programmes were:

Wandsworth Council: Harassment Training

We were commissioned by the Council Tax & Benefits department at Wandsworth Council to undertake Equalities and Diversity needs analysis with the senior management team in the department.

We started by reading and analysing relevant department documents, including an overview of the on-going management development training, the department’s business plan and the recent CPA inspection results. We also looked at Impact Assessments that had been undertaken and the equality policies, structures and systems developed to support the service.

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council: Corporate Guidance Handbook on Equalities Monitoring

Stockport Council commissioned us in the autumn of 2005 to produce a corporate guidance handbook on equalities monitoring in service provision.

The aim of the guidance was to promote a consistent approach to the equalities monitoring of service provision in Stockport Council. The target audience included managers and officers responsible for the development and operation of monitoring systems and those who are in a position to change service provision in response to data.

Ryedale District Council: Audit and Consultancy Support

We have recently undertaken an audit of equalities processes and performance across Ryedale District Council in order to support the Council in progressing to level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government. This has included a review of systems for the collection of workforce monitoring data. We are currently developing the next stage of our intervention to provide some capacity-building workshops around workforce monitoring for officers from Human Resources and senior managers. These sessions are likely to include:

North East Lincolnshire Council: Consultancy Support

We were commissioned by North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) in February 2008 to support them in establishing the evidence base for Level 3 of the Equality Standards for Local Government to meet their target of external assessment in October/November.

The Council had established Corporate and Directorate equality groups and had identified the need for further one to one support for Directorates to ensure that they were confident in the requirements for evidence at Level 3.

We facilitated a workshop with the Corporate Equality Group which allowed us to identify:

North East Derbyshire District Council: Equality Consultancy

Equality Works were commissioned by North East Derbyshire District Council (NEDDC) to carry out an audit of Equality and Diversity. This involved providing a programme of consultancy support to help the council progress rapidly from Level 2 to Level 3 of the ESLG.

Beginning work with NEDDC in July 2007 we also had to be sure that the Council could effectively manage Equality and Diversity in the future without growing the staff resources needed to achieve this aim.

Medway Council: Carousel Training Days

Our work with Medway has had several strands and has been continuing since 1998. The Equalities and Diversity project has had three phases. With the aim of mainstreaming equalities into all Council activities and to ensure that managers and staff integrate equalities into their key functions, Equality works were commissioned to carry out ‘Carousel training days.’

Medway Council: Black Workers’ Forum

We are proud of our long standing relationship with Medway Black Workers’ Forum (BWF), one of the most long lived and successful staff forums in the UK. We have facilitated sessions for them regularly since 2001.

London Borough of Tower Hamlets: Sexuality Awareness Training

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets recently changed their training provider and approached us on the basis that we have been working with them on a number of projects over the last two years and have received excellent feedback on all the interventions. They commissioned us to run two sessions as a pilot and will then review and evaluate the work for rollout across the Council.

WHO WE WORK WITH