Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member – Councillor Menna Trenholme

To submit a report on the above.

A lunch break is planned for 12.00pm – 1.00pm

To accept the report and note the observations.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Support and officers from the Corporate Support Department were welcomed to the meeting.

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Corporate Support explaining that the Council had a specific duty, as part of the Equality Act 2010, to review its Equality Objectives by the end of March 2024, and she invited the input of the scrutineers to the draft objectives.

The Cabinet Member set out the context and thanked the officers for all their work in this field.

Members were then given an opportunity to ask questions and submit observations. 

It was noted that the most important thing to remember in terms of equality was that the starting point was not the same for everyone and that sometimes the starting point needed to be moved so that people with barriers which prevented them from being equal in society could move forward.   With that, it was asked which steps the Council were taking, for example, to give jobs to people with those inequalities and to give them an opportunity to step forward.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That the intention of the objectives of the Strategic Equality Plan was to try to move things forward for those people who experienced inequality and that four objectives were working towards action points on this.

·         That the first objective was involved with employment and that this was in accordance with the guidance.

·         Consideration had also been given to what else that needed to be done.  The staff had been asked to complete a questionnaire noting their characteristics, but many did not do so for various reasons, but without this information, it was not possible to know what the situation was within the Council and who needed the most encouragement.  As a result, it was decided that actions points were required which would move this forward.

·         That the Council had a legal duty to be a welcoming employer to all, and the right attitudes were needed within the organisation operating in a manner that was welcoming to all and encouraged everyone to come and work for us, e.g. it was possible to undertake reasonable adaptations to the workplace for people who felt that they needed support to come and work for the Council.

·         That there was room to improve this again and that part of the Plan on employment set an ambition to undertake specific steps towards ensuring that Gwynedd was the chosen employer for all.

It was enquired how more women could be attracted to senior managers' posts.  In response, it was noted:-

·         That the Women in Leadership field was a priority field within the Council and that a project working on changing the culture had been in place for many years and making great progress.

·         That a pilot scheme was underway examining how job application forms were being screened to ensure that there was no type of unnecessary bias.

·         In terms of other characteristics, that an equality core group met on a quarterly basis and included  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6