Equalities plan 2012-16
In line with the Equality Act 2010 and new Public Sector Equality Duty for Wales, all public authorities must produce a strategic equality plan containing set equality objectives.
The City and County of Swansea's strategic equality plan (initially for the period 2012-16) was formally adopted by the council on 15 March 2012 and sets out how we will build on our previous equality and diversity scheme and our arrangements for meeting the new legislative duties.
Our equality objectives (included within the plan) are based on information from local, regional and national sources and highlight areas of inequality in service provision, service take-up or attainment for or by specific groups with protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act.
These characteristics are
- Age
- Disability
- Gender re-assignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief (including non-belief)
- Sex
- Sexual orientation.
Issues regarding Welsh language usage are dealt with under the council's Welsh Language scheme. Each equality objective contains actions to achieve specific, measurable outcomes to reduce inequalities across all of the protected characteristics.
The table below shows the links between the council's improvement plan and the relevant equality objectives.
| Our improvement objectives | Strategic equality plan |
|---|---|
Provide support for children in the early years in Swansea so that they are ready for learning and make developmental progress | Equality objective 14 - reduce the inequalities that exist in the health, education and economic outcomes for children living in poverty, by improving the outcomes of the poorest. |
People are safe, well and supported to live independently (child and family) | Equality objective 18 - improve access to social services provision, ensuring that the service user's needs are at the centre of all planning and commissioning activities. |
Support improvement to school attendance and attainment of all learners aged 3-19 years so that each can achieve their potential | Equality objective 10 - maintain improving trends in assessment of boys and girls at key stage 2 and key stage 3. Close the performance gap between boys and girls. Equality objective 14 - increase primary and secondary school attendance in target areas. Increase the average All Wales Reading Test scores for 6-7yr olds and 10-11 yr olds in target areas. Increase the proportion of 15-16 yr olds achieving Level 2 threshold including English, or Welsh and maths. |
Develop partnerships, skills and infrastructure in order to attract and grow a knowledge based economy creating jobs grounded in key sectors. | Equality objective 1 - establish a focused officer group made up of representatives from access to services team and economic regeneration and planning department in order to help address key equality issues arising from consultation on ongoing work programmes. |
Promote affordable credit and savings options and help people maximise their income and entitlements | Equality objective 2 - provide a welfare rights advice line 3 days per week to support staff from City and County of Swansea and partner organisations to negotiate the significant changes to the benefits system resulting from welfare reform. |
Help people adopt and develop healthy and sustainable lifestyles in order to improve health. | Equality objective 17 - encourage greater participation and improve access to cultural, leisure and sporting services/facilities. |
People are safe, well and supported to live independently (adult services). | Equality objective 18 - improve access to social services provision, ensuring that the service user's needs are at the centre of all planning and commissioning activities. |
Improve housing and housing supply in order to increase the availability of good quality, affordable housing. | Equality objective 15 - improve customer access to housing services. |
Minimise waste and increase recycling through promotion, working with others and by targeting low participating areas. | Equality objective 26 - assisted waste collections for disabled people and older people. |
Sustainable development
Swansea Council is committed to sustainable development and a greener, more sustainable Swansea.