Equality objectives

The Equality Act 2010 requires that Council must set and publish equality objectives. The draft objectives have been designed to ensure they:

• Are specific and measurable
• Consider all three parts of the Public Sector Equality Duty
• Use the equality information that has been gathered by the Council, in particular there should be a link between evidence of inequalities in outcomes and objectives
• Are achievable but ambitious.

The objectives are:

• Work with schools to improve the education achievements of looked after children within Middlesbrough.
• Improve early intervention work to reduce the number of contacts to children's social care and increase the number of children and young people whose needs are met at an earlier stage.
• Increase access to services options by making better use of technology to enable more customers to access services using the Internet while enabling them to continue using other channels if they wish to do so.
• Work with a diverse range of partners to reduce inequalities in health outcomes across the borough on a rolling annual basis.
• Increase the diversity of candidates shortlisted for interview for Council posts with a view to increasing the diversity of the workforce so that it more closely reflects the composition of the local population.

We are asking residents, service users and staff to give us their views on the equality objectives. If you have any comments on the equality objectives please email diversity@middlesbrough.gov.uk

The equality objectives are finalised they will be embedded within the Council's Strategic Plan in the future. Overall progress against equality objectives will be reported within the annual Equality and Diversity report.