Our equality objectives

Our equality objectives are embedded within our Policy Framework as part of the Community and Corporate Plan. Our progress against each of our equality objectives is set out below:

• Objective one
• Objective two
• Objective three
• Objective four

Equality objective one

Our mission is to be a Council that collaborates with its residents, communities, and partnerships - a Council that supports, enables, and empowers. We recognise and value strong partnership working and understand the importance of effective engagement with communities. Our Community Engagement and Empowerment Strategy sets out how we are building more positive and trusted relationships. It also outlines how the Council intends to meet its mission to be a Council that works in collaboration with its residents, communities, and partners and actively seeks the views of underrepresented groups.

The strategy reiterates the Council’s commitment to ensuring that our communities and stakeholders participate in our decision-making and are given the opportunity to help find solutions through high-quality, appropriately targeted consultation and engagement.

During 2024 we consciously engaged with different communities when we took decisions and delivered our services. We:

• Developed and started to deliver a web accessibility action plan to improve the accessibility of our website so that people can find the information they need about our services.
• Reviewed how we undertake equality impact assessments and raised awareness of their importance to ensure that we are considering equality when making decisions.
• Published information about our community demographics to meet our Public Sector Equality duties.
• Drafted and shared a survey to better understand the needs of Torbay’s LGBT+ community. The findings will help shape the delivery of adult social care in Torbay, alongside informing our wider inclusion work.
• Asked equality questions within our consultation surveys to find out if a proposed change to our policy or one of our services would affect a particular group of people.
• Engaged with organisations working with different communities as part of the consultation on the proposed establishment of the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority.
• Started to develop an inclusion partnership which would act as a critical friend to the Council and help improve the quality and robustness of equality impact assessments and our wider equality work. The partnership will be in place by April 2025.
• Continued to support the Learning Disability Partnership which provides a voice and opportunity for people with learning disabilities to shape Council policy. We marked Learning Disability Awareness Week across the Council to highlight some of the challenges that people with learning disabilities encounter.
• Continued to support the Autism Partnership Board which has regularly met and continues to play a key role in Torbay.
• Continued to hold community engagement events across Torbay to better understand the needs of local people.
• Continued to encourage employees to use Torbay Council templates when writing documents to ensure our documents and letters are accessible to users of assistive technology. This work has been complemented by a focus on the ‘Torbay Tone of Voice’ which aims to encourage colleagues to communicate in an accessible manner.
• Provided British Sign Language interpretation and translation and foreign language interpretation to individuals where required.

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Equality objective two

Torbay Council is committed to reducing inequalities and ensuring that its residents thrive. Torbay is the most deprived local authority in England and there is significant variation in health and wellbeing across the Bay. In our most affluent areas residents can expect to live on average over eight years longer than those living in our more deprived communities. There are also significant gaps in healthy life expectancy between the most affluent and deprived areas.

To help us understand the needs of our different communities when we are developing and commissioning services, we produce a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA). The JSNA provides comprehensive insight on the protected characteristics and includes information about education, housing, and care. This information sits alongside our Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

In 2024, our work to reduce inequalities include the following examples. We:

• Published our annual Public Health report which explored the health inequalities which women experience. Insights included within the report were gathered through community groups and organisations, commissioned services and peer and grass-roots networks as well as individuals living in Torbay. The report included a set of recommendations which aim to reduce health inequalities.
• Published Torbay Interagency Carers' Strategy 2024-27 which sets out how we plan to work with our partners to support carers living in the Bay. We know that it is essential that support for Carers is easy to access, and preventative in nature to reduce health inequalities.
• Published the Serious Violence Strategy which will support families and communities to be and feel safer.
• Revised the Council Tax Support scheme to support low-income households with their Council Tax bill.
• Published a new Reasonable Adjustment policy and raised awareness of its importance through attending team meetings and sharing articles in staff newsletters.
• Reviewed our governance arrangements around our inclusion work in Adult Social Care to promote closer working relationships with our key partners.
• Worked with local partners to form a new Torbay and South Devon Healthy Ageing Partnership. This brings together existing work in both localities and oversees policy, prevention and pathways in relation to healthy ageing.
• Continued to promote inclusive economic growth through UK Shared Prosperity Fund funded programmes which alongside some additional Council funding, aimed to deliver five new employment and skills programmes.
• Worked with voluntary sector partners to maintain and grow the Live Longer Better healthy ageing offer in Torbay, supporting residents to build on our physical, mental, social and cognitive health as we age.
• Scoped how the Council and partners can build on our commitment to Age Friendly Torbay during the coming years, working with people in our communities to build environments that promote ageing healthily.
• Committed to working with children’s charity UNICEF UK and local partners towards international recognition as a UNICEF Child Friendly Community. The ambitious partnership will see councillors, council staff and local community and voluntary sector partners turning to children’s rights – as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – to guide decisions that affect children and young people in Torbay.
• Worked with our partners to put in place a Supported Housing Pathway that provides a comprehensive support system for young individuals in Torbay facing challenges in securing stable housing.

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Equality objective three

The Torbay Racism Review was established by the Council in response to the murder of George Floyd in the USA in May 2020 and the resulting community protests in the UK. The Review aimed to explore and better understand racism in Torbay and was keen to engage with our partners and community in a way that allowed them the space and time to voice their experiences and views. 

The review panel consisted of five councillors who reflected the political make-up of the council alongside co-opted community members who supported the panel with their knowledge and expertise. The Review culminated in a report which included recommendations for the Council and its partners which have been progressed in some areas.

A key recommendation from the Review was for Torbay Council to employ an officer whose job focuses on promoting inclusion. In 2023, this post was advertised, and an officer is now in post. The post provides additional capacity to the organisation around inclusion and will allow a renewed focus to promote and embed inclusion across the Council and implement the remaining recommendations where appropriate.

In 2024, we progressed the following recommendations from the Race Review:

• Supported staff to continue to improve their cultural competence and confidence to improve workforce inclusivity and engage with our diverse population and communities through equality, diversity and inclusion training.
• Started to update the equality information we collect about our customers and service users on our key customer relationship management systems. Further work is required across the organisation to ensure that we capture relevant and accurate information.

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Equality objective four

Our staff are one of our biggest assets and our employees come from a wide range of backgrounds with a variety of skills and knowledge. We are committed to creating an environment where are staff are supported and encouraged to reach their potential where they can provide the best possible service to our customers.

Our adopted Core Values are at the heart of everything we do and help guide our actions as individuals and teams, particularly when we work through increasingly challenging issues.

Demonstrating our Core Values, we will:

• Always be approachable, calm and respectful.
• Create an environment where we act professionally and treat everyone with respect.
• Ensure that policies and initiatives are in place so our staff can feel safe at work and perform their duties without feeling bullied or discriminated against

In addition, we have a range of equality policies in place, and we expect our staff to work in accordance with these.

In 2024, to support the diverse needs of our workforce and the implementation of our People Strategy we have:

• Supported colleagues in updating the Violence and Threatening Behaviour Policy. This has included adding more specific references to discriminatory behaviour within the policy and adding additional reporting categories on Council’s the health and safety portal.
• Developed new staff network groups which include the Women’s Network and the Neurodiversity Network. These new groups provide a space for promoting inclusion and peer support. We are continuing to develop our staff network offer.
• Refreshed key equality, diversity and inclusion related workforce policies to ensure that they are up to date and meet the needs of our workforce and reflect legislative changes.
• Revised the Council’s equality intranet pages to provide a single point of info for equality, diversity and inclusion related topics.
• Delivered inclusion awareness raising sessions with senior managers on the importance of reasonable adjustments. This work has included a pilot reasonable adjustment training course for our managers with further courses planned.
• Delivered a member training session on inclusion that took place in October 2024. This session aimed to support members with their understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion so they can confidently consider inclusion as part of their decision making. Further sessions will be delivered.
• Provided new starters with an online induction to equality and diversity training as part of their induction.

In addition, we have continued to work with our Public Health colleagues to offer an extensive wellbeing offer to employees which included:

• An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) which helps staff deal with personal and professional problems that could be affecting their home life or work life.
• A Wellbeing at Work Toolkit which is full of resources, services and tips for staff.
• Wellbeing Supporters who are a point of contact and support for colleagues experiencing a well-being, mental health or emotional distress issue.
• Stress Awareness Support through a toolkit and resources to help understand and manage stress.
• Access to the Devon Wellbeing Hub for health and social care staff, which includes access to a wide range of health and wellbeing support, such as crisis support and interventions.
• A Menopause Champions support group and resources.
• Financial wellbeing support hub along with access to pensions, retirement, savings and loans information and sessions delivered by regulated providers.
• Recruited a new Recruitment lead whose role has a focus on inclusive recruitment to ensure that prospective employees are supported through their recruitment journey and employment as part of our Disability Confident Employer accreditation.

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