Equality and diversity

What do we mean by equality and diversity?

Equality is a legal framework to protect against discrimination and promote equality of opportunity to people and groups on the grounds of their race, gender, disability, faith, sexual orientation and age.

Diversity is the valuing our individual differences and talents, creating a culture where everyone can participate, thrive and contribute.

We integrate equality and diversity into our policy development, service delivery and employment practices:

• view our Equality and Diversity Policy (pdf 42KB)
• read more about how we are commited to equality and diversity.

Legislation

In recent years a range of new legislation and national policy initiatives have been introduced to ensure:

• fair recruitment and employment practice
• functions and services are fully accessible to all
• fair treatment across all six strands of diversity on the grounds of: gender, transgender, disability, race, sexual orientation, age and religious belief.

The Equality Bill introduces a duty on public sector bodies (including us) to produce a single equality scheme and action plan that will:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination
• promote equality
• promote understanding between people of different groups such a disabled and racial minorities.

A Fairer Future- The Equality Bill (pdf 446KB) from the Government Equalities Office outlines in detail why equality matters and explains why a new Equality Bill is being introduced.