Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2024 - 2027
Alternative languages
English
If you would like help understanding this information - for example, if you would like to request it in an alternative format or language - please contact ASC.EqualityTeam@eastsussex.gov.uk
In other languages
Arabic [14.0 KB] [docx]
Bengali [13.9 KB] [docx]
Farsi [14.1 KB] [docx]
Latvian [14.0 KB] [docx]
Polish [14.1 KB] [docx]
Russian [14.2 KB] [docx]
Pashto [14.0 KB] [docx]
Ukrainian [14.3 KB] [docx]
Welcome letter from the Director
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy’s title is Inclusive by Design. It reflects our ambitions for the future, despite the financial challenges we currently face. It sets out a framework for action and the values we will be guided by to transform support and services:
- to get the best value for money,
- improve outcomes and
- reduce inequality for residents.
The strategy builds on the successes and learning from our previous Equality and Inclusion Strategy. It is designed to help us achieve our ‘What Matters to You’ plan to enable care, support and independence for adults across East Sussex.
We are proud of the work we’ve done to date, but we know there is more we can do to advance the local EDI agenda. As a leadership team, we will champion this work and take action to deliver meaningful, sustainable change for everyone.
We have set ourselves four EDI priorities for the next three years. This strategy provides context to explain how we developed the priorities and outcomes we would like to see. It is supported by a detailed action plan setting out what we will do.
Our success will be judged on whether we are achieving our priorities of:
1) Delivering leadership on equality and demonstrating commitment
2) Engaging effectively with residents to make improvements
3) Delivering quality services that reflect the diverse needs of local people
4) Building a diverse workforce with equality confidence, knowledge and skills
We can only achieve our priorities if we form strong working relationships with our partners across the system. This includes the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector (VCSE), NHS partners, providers and other public sector organisations.
Together we can ensure that we are offering inclusive care and support for everyone.
Mark Stainton
Director
Adult Social Care and Health
Vision: Our commitment
Our equality diversity and inclusion ambition is to create fair, safe, accessible and inclusive care and support services. We want everyone to feel they belong, have a voice and an equal opportunity to thrive. This will contribute to the vision set out in our Adult Social Care Strategy ‘What Matters to You’.
Being inclusive is not just about welcoming different contributions. It also means:
- actively tackling inequalities
- advancing greater equality
- fostering good relations between different people and
- removing the physical, economic, structural or social barriers that hold people back.
This will help to ensure that everyone in East Sussex is included.
The Public Sector Equality Duty
The Equality Act 2010 places certain duties on public authorities, which includes Councils. Public authorities must, in the exercise of their functions, have due regard to the need to:
- Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the act;
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not;
- Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
The Equality Act 2010 further explains that having due regard for advancing equality means public authorities should:
- Remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics;
- Take steps to meet the needs of people with protected characteristics, where these are different from the needs of other people;
- Encourage people with protected characteristics to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low.
Finally, the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 places a requirement on public authorities to publish, at least annually, information to demonstrate compliance with the above duties. Public Authorities with 150 employees or more are also obliged to publish, at least annually, information concerning protected characteristics in relation to their staff and other persons affected by its policies and practices.
What are the benefits of the equality duty?
The Equality Act provides the legal framework for statutory services. But this strategy seeks to go beyond the statutory duty. We want to ensure all sectors and communities consider the needs of everyone who experiences disadvantage and discrimination. This includes:
- those with caring responsibilities and those receiving care,
- homeless people,
- refugees and people seeking asylum,
- people in and coming out of the criminal justice system,
- people with substance misuse problems,
- those experiencing deprivation and poverty, and
- people we seldom hear from.
We want to ensure everyone is treated inclusively and can benefit from the same access to opportunities.
Our Human Rights commitments
As well as the Equality Act 2010, the council is subject to the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998. This sets out a framework for the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person from birth to death. The rights defined in this act and international law are:
- Right to life
- Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
- Freedom from slavery and forced labour
- Right to liberty and security
- Right to a fair trial
- No punishment without law (under which people’s rights can be restricted if they break the law)
- Respect for private and family life, home and correspondence
- Freedom of thought, belief and religion
- Freedom of expression
- Freedom of assembly and association
- Right to marry and start a family
- Protection from discrimination in respect of these rights and freedoms
- Right to peaceful enjoyment of property
- Right to education
- Right to participate in free elections
We want to work to ensure people are aware of their rights. We are taking steps to ensure that rights-based conversations, with people who draw on care and support from us, inform our strengths-based practices in provision of care and support.
Our progress so far and the key challenges we face
As a department, we have achieved a significant amount since 2021. This includes spearheading a focus on EDI across the Council. Key achievements on the 2021-2024 Equality and Inclusion Strategy are listed below:
1. Knowing our communities and inclusivity at the heart of service development
We have continued to use and strengthen ASCH’s existing community engagement mechanisms to inform our work. This includes Equality Impact Assessments and co-production of policy and service improvements.
- Disability Rights Reference Group, set up in November 2021 as a new way of consulting with groups representing disabled people.
- Ukrainian Guests Advisory Panel (UGAP), established in April 2022 to co-develop services needed by the new Ukrainian communities.
- Citizens’ Panel, set up in June 2022 to support the co-development of the ASC Strategy. The panel also contributes to policy work and service development.
- The Scrutiny Review of Seldom Heard Communities, published in October 2023, has helped us to understand and identify how we can overcome barriers organisational, practical, attitude/behaviour, and cultural) for people we don’t usually hear from.
2. A safe, fair, and inclusive workplace environment
Our Workforce Programme is spearheading work to ensure we are investing in recruitment, retention, wellbeing and building leadership for the future. This is supported by the Building Social Justice project which aims to create and maintain a safe, fair and inclusive workplace for all staff.
- Working Inclusively Guidance and Self-Assessment Tool launched in June 2022. This helps individuals and teams identify equality objectives, training, and development needs.
- The ASCH staff Equality Allies network, established in June 2023. The Allies champion EDI messages and good practice. They also act to develop a work culture that is inclusive and equality aware.
- Building and enhancing social justice, equality, diversity and inclusion in the workforce is a strand of ASCH Workforce Programme. This aims to ensure staff feel valued, supported and safe in the workplace.
- The violence, harassment and discrimination against staff project was established in 2023. This aims to provide better support, monitoring and understanding of these issues, by collecting and analysing data.
- Creation of the Council wide Neurodiversity Viva Engage group. This now has more than 221 members with monthly online meetings. This group is in addition to other staff equality networks, including Race Equality, LGBTQ+, Disability and Carers.
3. Data recording, sharing and analysis
We have an improved data monitoring process and improved outcomes for how we use that data.
Using Equality data for improving services and strategic planning.
- We now routinely collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of people who receive our long-term support.
- We use survey analysis to identify inequalities and other inclusion-related themes. The results are reported to the ASCH Performance Board.
- We monitor equality data recording to improve data collection. Since 2021, recording levels have improved for marital status (14 to 34%), religion (57 to 65%) and for sexual orientation (26 to 51%).
- We collect and analyse population and client data which shows ethnicity and communication preferences. This informs our strategic planning for translation and interpreting services.
Our Equality Impact Assessment processes use our equality data to improve planning and commissioning of services.
Equality Impact Assessments have improved in quality and action planning. Some examples include:
- Making sure that people with sensory or cognitive impairments can still have face-to-face financial assessments.
- In the third party top-up payments project, data showed a large proportion of clients affected were receiving support for memory, cognition and sensory impairment. A range of communication methods were then introduced, including via carers and advocates.
- The Learning Disability day services Equality Impact Assessment reviewed data on complex needs and rurality for clients, and carer and client feedback. This led to provision of transport and recruitment of additional drivers.
4. Strengthening staff practice and knowledge of equality and human rights as they link to our work
720 people across the department attended sessions and feedback has been extremely positive. Staff felt that their practice had become more inclusive for clients, carers and colleagues. The following training sessions were designed and are being delivered:
- Becoming confident in the use of EDI language
- What’s EDI got to do with me?
- Trans and non-binary awareness and allyship
- Eggshells to Allyship: Developing anti-racist practices
- Data monitoring: How to ask difficult questions
- Cultural curiosity: Working better with refugees and asylum seekers
- Translation and interpreting: How to access support
East Sussex population
Population aged 65+
26% of the adult population in East Sussex are older people (65+). This is considerably higher than the whole of England where 18% of the population is aged 65 and over.
Additional households headed by older people by 2035
By 2035, there will be 37,700 more households headed by older people, aged 65 and over.
Fall in working age population in next 20 years
Over the next 20 years the working age population is expected to fall by 5.6% in Hastings and 3.3% in Eastbourne.
Working age adults by gender
The proportion of the population that is female generally increases with age.
Working age adults by gender: Male – 49%; Female 51%
Older people by gender: Male – 45%; Female 55%
Population aged 66 and over living alone
There are 41,304 one-person households aged 66 years or over. This means that 30% of the population aged 66 years or over are living alone. Within the county it ranges from 27% in Wealden to 35% in Hastings
Population aged 85+ by 2026
East Sussex = 4.3%
England = 2.5%
We currently have the highest percentage of people aged 85 and over of any local authority area in England.
Ethnic minority population
11.1% of the population in East Sussex is from an ethnic minority background. ~This has increased from 8.0% in the 2011 Census.
Residents born outside UK
The 2021 Census showed around 53,820 residents (9.9%) of East Sussex were born outside the UK. This is an increase of 10,970 (25.6%) since 2011.
Rural and urban population
Based on 2011 census classifications 74.0% of the population lives in an urban area and 26% lives in a rural area.
Proportion of people with a disability
20% of the population in East Sussex has a disability. This is higher than the South East at 15.7% and England at 17.9
This means we have a higher proportion of the population with multiple, complex needs and dependency needs. We also have a lower proportion of working age people. Additionally, our population is diversifying. This is set against increased demand for services, financial pressures, and workforce challenges.
We are using our data to set targets and measures to improve our practice and ensure accessibility and inclusivity. The strategy will also demonstrate this to our residents and others. This means equalities data will be considered within other work projects and learning mechanisms including:
- strengths-based assessments,
- reducing waiting times,
- complaints and feedback and
- casefile audits.
How we defined our priorities and actions
The priorities set in this strategy align to our council-wide Equality Objectives. However, the department-specific actions and objectives were co-developed with a range of partners. We have been holding engagement meetings with our VCSE partners since June 2023.
We engaged and consulted on these priorities and activities with a range of groups, including:
- those representing people who draw on our care and support options,
- our staff groups,
- our VCSE partners, and
- our Integrated Care System partners,
as well as other public sector partners.
What people said to us was:
- They want visible leadership on EDI issues.
- They want to know how their feedback has been used.
- Engagement and consultation should be a continuous conversation. This means that we are not starting from scratch every time we engage on a new plan or service.
- They want staff to receive the same training on EDI issues so there is no disparity in the services they receive.
- They want commissioning of services and, care and support options to be transparent and informed by the Equality Act
- They want to understand how data monitoring has been used to improve services.
- Staff should feel safe, included, valued and supported in the work they do.
This feedback, actions from ‘What Matters To You’, and our review of seldom heard people have helped create the action plan for this strategy.
Our four priorities and action plan
Priority 1: Delivering leadership on equality and demonstrating commitment
Leadership is key to establishing a strong vision for equity and improving equality outcomes laid out in this strategy. Equality and inclusion need to be addressed through visible leadership, strong organisational culture and partnerships. This will help us reach the high standards we expect of ourselves, and others will look to us as a source of good practice.
Our strategic leadership will continue to play a central role in ensuring that equality issues are integral to our performance and strategic aims. This will also promote a culture where positive relationships are built and people are supported, valued, and respected for who they are.
Objectives
- Improved EDI focus in decision-making.
- Use of EDI messages in leadership communication with staff.
- Completion and annual review of LGA Diverse by Design self-assessment by leadership.
Impact statement
Everyone knows that equality diversity and inclusion is inherent in our work. We can see this reflected in departmental culture and in our quality assurance mechanisms.
Priority 2: Engaging effectively with residents to make improvements
We want to continue to understand the diverse needs of our communities and how to meet them effectively. We will actively engage, encourage and support local people, groups and organisations to participate in the work we do to improve opportunity and inclusion. We are committed to co-producing services with people with lived experience. We recognise the improved quality, relevance and efficacy of services when experts in their own lives are central to the design and commissioning process.
We will strengthen our existing engagement forums. We will also create new forums on race and ethnicity, faith and religion and LGBTQ+ communities. We will enhance our engagement with older people to ensure we consider intersectionalities and the impact on people from different backgrounds.
Objectives
- completion of the feedback loop with residents, staff and strategic partners
- Improved reporting on Equality Impact Assessment and use of data and feedback
- Strengthening strand-based engagement and consultation, with focus on developing our engagement on:
- older people,
- race and ethnicity,
- faith and religion,
- LGBTQ+ communities,
- carers, and
- people living in rural areas.
Impact statement
Services will be inclusive by design and flexible, to meet the needs of all people. It will be evident that we have listened to feedback from clients, carers and partners to help identify our priorities and make decisions.
Priority 3: Delivering quality services that reflect the diverse needs of local people
Recommendations for the seldom heard people review committed us to reset all our equality, diversity and inclusion work. We would like to dig deeper into the data on who uses services and where the gaps are. This is possible now that we have made improvements in data recording over the last three years.
We will support and promote inclusive behaviour with residents and people who draw on care and support. We will do this by setting and maintaining clear expectations and will role model inclusive behaviour when we interact with our community. We will co-produce, where we can, and provide inclusive and accessible services that improve outcomes for our diverse local population, particularly for people we seldom hear from.
Objectives
- Improve use of data collection and analysis to identify any inequalities of experience or outcomes. This insight will also highlight groups at risk of having unmet needs or poor outcomes.
- Working across the department to use data and insights to reduce inequalities of experience or outcomes.
- All our improvement projects will take into account people’s protected characteristics.
Impact statement
Provision of services is the best it can be for everyone, irrespective of their background. Those at risk of unmet needs and who draw on our care and support feel able to give us feedback and engage with us.
Priority 4: Building a diverse workforce with equality confidence, knowledge and skills
We want an engaged and diverse workforce. We know that this brings different perspectives and creates a wealth of ideas. We will work to create an inclusive environment for a diverse range of people to work in. This will show that we value their health and wellbeing. Linking with the workforce programme and HR initiatives will help identify our priorities. This will ensure that the recruitment, retention and wellbeing of our staff has inclusion at its core.
Objectives
- Building an inclusive workforce which fosters a culture of respect. This would ensure that our people feel safe and that they belong.
- Empowering people to design and deliver inclusive and accessible services. This would mean the removal of internal and external institutional barriers.
- Ensuring our staff team feel confident in EDI issues and language.
Impact statement
All our staff will feel like they belong and are accepted for who they are. This will have a positive impact on recruitment and retention. A kind and communicative workforce will demonstrate strength-based practice at its core.
How will we know this strategy is making a difference?
This strategy has an annual EDI action plan. It was co-developed with help from our partners, residents and staff. The plan sets out actions against each of our equality priorities. It includes baseline measures and will be used to check and evaluate whether outcomes are on track and delivered. Our Performance Board will monitor our progress and will publish an annual update on our intranet and website.
Getting in touch
If you have any feedback, or want to find out anything more about this strategy and the accompanying Action and Implementation Plan, please do get in touch with the Equality and Inclusion Team.
Glossary
| Words | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cognitive impairment | Difficulties with mental abilities such as memory, problem solving, thinking, attention, concentration, language or visual ability. |
| Co-production | When people with lived experience have an equal role in designing policy and services. |
| Discrimination | Treating someone unfairly. |
| Disproportionality | When a number is too large or too small in relation to something else. |
| Diversity | A mix of different kinds of people. |
| Equality | Treating everyone fairly. Everyone having the same chances. |
| Equality Act 2010 | The Government’s law about treating people equally and fairly. The Act is for people in England, Scotland and Wales and protects us all by making it against the law to discriminate against someone. |
| Equality Impact Assessment | A template to analyse and assess how the Council’s work might affect different groups of people |
| Harassment | Unwanted behaviour that is offensive or hostile, which makes a person feel uncomfortable, intimidated or humiliated, because they have a protected characteristic. |
| Inclusion | Making sure that everybody who wants to be part of something can be. |
| Inclusive | When something is inclusive, it is accessible for all and welcomes everyone for who they are. |
| Inequality | When people are not treated fairly and do not have the same chances. |
| Intersectionality | When multiple forms of inequality compound and overlap. |
| Neurodiversity | The different ways that people process information, experience and interact with the world |
| Protected characteristic | The Equality Act talks about 9 different characteristics that give us our identity and say something about who we are. We all have more than 1 of the 9 protected characteristics. It is against the law to be treated unfairly or be discriminated against for having any of these characteristics. |
| Rurality | Living in a rural area or deprivation experienced by people living in rural areas. |
| Seldom heard | People who might use health or social care services but are less likely to be heard by these service professionals and decision-makers |
| Sensory impairment | Difficulties with vision or hearing. |
| Strategy | A plan of work for a long time. |
| Victimisation | When a person is treated badly for challenging unlawful discrimination. |