St Georges Launches Three Year Single Equality Scheme
Published by JenCooke for St Georges Community Housing Ltd in Housing and also in Communities, Education
St Georges Community Housing has launched a new resident backed scheme to promote equality and encourage diversity.
The Single Equality Scheme has been developed to provide an outline of the organisation’s commitment to promote equality in race, disability, gender, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age and also bringing new rights for other groups.
The scheme has been introduced following a period of intensive consultation with, residents, contractors, staff, wider community groups and partners including Basildon District Council.
This took place between January and April 2010 and the consultation gave residents the chance to have a direct say in how St Georges Community Housings’ services could be improved to better promote equality. As a result, St Georges Community Housing was able to identify local issues and based the Action Plan on this feedback.
The new Equality Act 2010 is expected to come into force from October 2010 and will bring together existing laws on discrimination requiring public sector organisations to ensure that they are open, accessible and welcoming to people from all communities and backgrounds.
The St Georges Community Housing Single Equality Scheme provides guidelines on topics such as diversity in the workforce, how to tackle under-representation of minority groups during service delivery and ensuring equality in procurement.
The scheme will set equality targets for the next three years that will be regularly monitored by the organisation.
St Georges Community Housing has also been selected, with other housing organisations, by IDeA (Improvement and Development Agency) to participate in the development of the national Social Housing Equality framework. The IDeA is in discussion with the TSA (Tenants Services Authority) to give final approval for this new Social Housing Equality Framework before it is launched later this year.
John Robb OBE, Chair of St Georges Community Housing, said: “The development of the Single Equality Scheme is the result of listening to and acting on the feedback from our tenants, employees and the wider community. St Georges Community Housing is committed to promoting equality and diversity in the policies we make, the services we provide and the workforce we employ and the scheme will assist the organisation in delivering equality for its residents and staff.”
Established as an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) in April 2007, St Georges Community Housing manages 12,900 homes and 5,900 garages for Basildon District Council. It works alongside the council and its residents to develop communities in which people are proud to live.
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