We are committed to celebrating diversity and promoting equality throughout our services.
The Council's vision embodied in The Deal and The Deal 2030 ensures that Wigan is a place where people are supported to live healthy, fulfilling lives in thriving communities, particularly those most dependent on public services. It is a place where people want to work, invest, live and visit.
We believe that services should be arranged around individuals, their families, carers and communities. By working in more creative ways, we can better reflect the diversity of those who need support and improve service quality in the process.
How we achieve this is routinely monitored with equality and diversity targets forming an integral part of the Council’s core priorities.
We are currently developing a new joint strategy, with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion members and the wider community, to accelerate change to address causes of inequalities and celebrate diversity. This strategy will be informed by engagement undertaken during 2022/23.
Equality objectives
We have adopted 5 equality aims for 2022:
Understanding our community
- Improve the quality of the Equality and Diversity information we collect and how we use it
- Strengthen our approaches to engage with residents and communities ensuring that he, she, or they feel valued and included (having different conversations and understanding lived experiences in the Borough)
- Build effective relationships with voluntary/community groups and Greater Manchester Combined Authority equality panels and boards to ensure a joined-up approach to equality issues, progress any shared actions and identify local priorities.
Celebrate and respect diversity in Wigan
- Promote events and education tools that celebrate diversity and address discrimination
- Work with stakeholders, including schools, to promote social cohesion
- Continue to build on our asset-based approaches to embed early intervention and prevention.
Gather robust equalities evidence and ensure transparency in our actions
- Continue to identify and review inequalities for all protected characteristics and take action to identify any barriers and address any impact
- Ensure equality, diversity and inclusion are all considered in the development of our future strategies, policies, and transformation / recovery plans.
To ensure our emerging Community Wealth Building approaches are inclusive and promote Equality and Diversity
- Reducing socio economic disadvantage and poverty, by building wealth and opportunity for all our communities.
Recruiting, developing, and retaining a diverse and representative workforce
- Improve the quality of workforce equality and diversity information we collect and how we use it
- Develop and improve staff’s equality and diversity skills, ensuring staff have the confidence to support and engage the diversity of service users in the Borough. For example, create learning opportunities for our workforce connected to people with lived experiences
- Support staff to embed fairness and inclusivity in all their work as a key principle of Deal 2030
- Understand and improve staff experience and staff voice on equality issues
- Ensure equality of opportunity, so that all staff have the right support and opportunities to reach their full potential.
The Public Sector Equality Commitment (PSED) annual report highlights our progress on our objectives so far and our activities for the coming year.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group
This group has been established to drive forward the improvement plan, bringing together key individuals from the public, voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sectors, with experience and passion for the equality's agenda.