Agenda item

Councillor Khondoker, Executive Member for Equalities, Culture and Inclusion, presented to the Committee. Raj Chand, Corporate Director for Community Engagement and Wellbeing, attended virtually for this item.

The following main points were noted in the discussion:

·        The Committee noted the senior officer turnover in the Community Engagement and Wellbeing directorate over recent months; Raj Chand had been recently appointed as the Corporate Director and had joined Islington the previous month.

·        The Executive Member summarised the approach to monitoring, reviewing, evaluating and communicating equalities actions across the organisation and the need to embed an equalities approach in all council services. Each directorate had their own equalities action plan that was linked to corporate priorities. The Committee noted the difficulty of measuring the success of some outcomes.

·        The Executive Member commented on the importance of scrutiny and feedback on council services, this provided helpful information to help make council services more inclusive.

·        The Executive Member summarised a range of initiatives from across the organisation, including work to diversify the council’s supply chains, work to support business owners from minority ethnic communities, support to community organisations, and delivery of the Black Cultural Centre.

·        The Corporate Director emphasised the importance of ensuring that all council services considered equalities issues and built this in to their service delivery.

·        A councillor commented on the importance of taking a strategic approach to equalities issues, and noted that councillors were often asked to contribute Local Initiatives Funding to support important cultural events. It was suggested that these events should receive core council funding, rather than rely on individual councillors making contributions. The scarcity of resources was noted in response, although it was suggested that there may be scope to work with other organisations to pool resources to ensure the maximum impact. While the council would like to fund more community events through core budget, the financial challenges facing the council were significant.

·        A member noted the importance of the Black Cultural Centre, commenting that equalities often considered communities with English as a second language, whereas Black communities also needed culturally sensitive services. The Executive Member provided a progress update on the development of the centre and noted the importance of upskilling community groups to help them to deliver advice and support to the communities they serve. Cllr Khondoker referenced a report and the Committee asked that it be made publicly available.

·        A member noted the officer turnover in the Community Engagement and Wellbeing directorate and asked if there was a long-term strategic plan to ensure key roles were filled. In response, it was note that recruitment to vacant roles would begin shortly.

·        A member asked how the Executive Member could hold other services to account if they were not delivering on their commitments to challenge inequality. The Executive Member commented that responsibility for delivering on equalities issues rested with individual departments, however the Executive Member and the Equalities Team had a key oversight role in enabling services to promote equalities, monitoring outcomes and challenging when appropriate. The Corporate Director summarised the governance structures for monitoring equalities work and noted that she was keen to introduce a more formalised assessment against the local government equalities framework. This could also lead to a peer review.

·        Following a question on how effective Equality Champions had been, it was commented that it was important for council services to have champions to lead on particular issues within their service. It was intended to hold regular meetings for officers to discuss the progress of their department’s equality action plans, any issues and to collectively problem-solve.

·        A member raised that the council’s leisure centres had discontinued specific swimming sessions for Muslim women, whereas this was offered in neighbouring boroughs. The Executive Member advised that she had worked with the service to ensure that these would be reinstated, and also summarised recent consultation with Muslim women to discuss the challenges they face. This had identified safety concerns and the Community Safety team was reviewing how best to support Muslim women to feel safe. This could include reviewing reporting mechanisms for hate crimes, and continued specific engagement with the community.

·        A discussion was had on the need for equalities to be “built in, not bolted on” to council services. Services needed upskilling on equalities issues and it was suggested that the council could mainstream equalities performance reporting into corporate performance indicators. The Committee emphasised on the importance of data and commented it was difficult to scrutinise the council’s performance without strong performance information on particular interventions and if they were effective or not. While the council had many commendable initiatives to promote equalities, clarity was needed on performance outcomes and how these would meet corporate priorities.  

·        The Executive Member agreed that increased data would support the council in implementing tangible measures targeted at specific outcomes, and would also allow for particular services to be held to account on their performance. It was advised that this would be considered further.  

·        The Chair suggested that the Committee may be able to review departmental equalities action plans at its February meeting.

The Committee thanked Councillor Khondoker for her attendance.

ACTIONS:

·        The Chair, Executive Member and relevant officers to review the Committee’s work plan with a view to considering departmental equality action plans.

·        The report on the Black Cultural Centre to be made available to the Committee.