Agenda item

Update on how it fared in 2011 and discussion about improving further.

The Forum noted that Northampton Borough Council takes part in the Stonewall Workplace Index Assessment for Diversity Champions – to help employers ensure their services to both internal and external customers are LGB-friendly. Northamptonshire County Council does not take part in this scheme but schools under its control can access help from Stonewall as it has signed up to their School champions scheme.

In the past year Northampton Borough Council as a whole had been assessed in comparison to other diversity champions in Stonewall’s scheme for the first time. The findings had been discussed with Stonewall to help the Council consider room for improvement and actions for improvement.

The Council had scored particularly well, above even top 100 employers, for its community engagement – specifically the forums, the events they organise with the community such as for World AIDS Day and Holocaust Memorial Day in the Guildhall courtyard, and for the use of Forums pages on Facebook. The contribution of Cllr Palethorpe as the then Leader of the Council and Co-Chair of the Forum with a good record of attending meetings and speaking in the community on LGB equality and against homophobia had also helped the council to do well. The Council had solid scores too for its equalities policy work. There had been no LGB discrimination tribunal cases.

Areas for improvement included increasing LGBT disclosures in staff and councillor equality monitoring, staff engagement and bullying prevention.

The forum discussed these and members of the forum shared some ideas for how the Council might look to improve in these areas.

- Staff diversity group: the Lesbian Line representative noted that Northampton General Hospital had a good response by not labelling their staff diversity group as “LGBT “. Instead they had made it general staff diversity and gradually grown the confidence for people to come out if they wished. Other members of the forum said they would welcome that approach too. It was noted that the gay-straight alliance approach avoids self-labelling; not everybody wants to be ‘out’ and declare themselves in every situation of their life so the words equality and diversity might be better descriptors – people feeling safer and more comfortable to attend.

One suggestion was that the unions might be involved to organise small events with the staff diversity group. Again Northampton General Hospital was suggested as an example the council might look to learn from.

It was noted that St Andrews Hospital seem to have an active staff group and that the NBC Community Engagement and Equalities Officer was in touch with her about this.

Conversation moved on to the use of logos in all kinds of literature and contexts for council services as a means to create an environment in which promoting LGB equality was the norm and expectation of staff, contractors and customers. Discussion with the Head of Landlord Services about possibly including the Stonewall Logo in the new tenants handbook was one example. One of the members of the Forum said that he is a tenant and has always been treated well by the Council.

A member of the Forum said they had been to see the Stamp out Hate Crime exhibition and had been very impressed with it, how positive it was and with the cyberbullying film it included.

Lindsey thanked the Forum for their very helpful ideas and said she would mention these in her meeting with the Head of Human Resources later in the month which was due to look at Stonewall and the Council.