Equality Standard for Local Government

The Equality Standard for Local Government was developed by the Employers Organisation (opens in a new window). It helps councils achieve and maintain through continuous improvement, the highest standard of equality in employment and service delivery.

It was revised in 2007 to help councils to concentrate more on outcomes and to cover the six main areas of equality:

Race
disability
gender
age
religion and belief and
sexual orientation.

We believe that by seeking to achieve all five levels of the Equality Standard, we will:

Systematically improve practice across the whole organisation
meet our legal obligations
tackle all forms of institutionalised discrimination
improve our overall performance
integrate equality and diversity into the business of the council and
improve awareness.

The Standard consists of the following five levels for councils to achieve:

Level 1 - Commitment to a Comprehensive Equality Policy
Level 2 - Assessment and community engagement
Level 3 - Setting equality objectives and targets
Level 4 - Information systems and monitoring against targets
Level 5 - Achieving and reviewing outcomes.

In 2006 we achieved Level 2 of the Standard and are aiming to achieve Level 3 in 2008.

Details of the work we are seeking to do to achieve level 3 is contained in our level 3 template/action plan.

Equality Standard for Local Government

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