The Head of Community Services has submitted a report to demonstrate how Oxford City Council will continue to meet thepublic sector Equality Duty to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between Oxford’s citizens.

Cabinet is recommended to:

1.      Endorse the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy; and

2.      Review the activities in the strategy when new insights or data (such as the census) become available, to ensure work remains evidence led.

The Head of Community Services had submitted a report to demonstrate how Oxford City Council would continue to meet the public sector Equality Duty to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between Oxford’s citizens.

In presenting the report, the Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities highlighted that the report was a living document which would be central to the Council’s work to address inequalities within the city, which were considered to have increased as a result of the pandemic.  The strategy involved ambitious targets, and challenged the Council in the work to be done.  Development of the strategy had involved a significant amount of work, particularly in relation to organising focus groups and providing opportunities for residents to engage with the Council.

The scrutiny recommendations were considered to have been helpful, and the Chair and members of the scrutiny committee were thanked for their thorough review.  The recommendation to provide community wi-fi in all community and leisure centres was agreed in principle; however, further work on the detail would need to be undertaken in order to determine feasibility.  The recommendations to: (i) mitigate the potential exclusionary impact on relevant vulnerable residents of moving towards cashless provision; (ii) undertake additional engagement with faith communities to understand their needs and support their contribution towards asset based community development and (iii) explicitly reference the need for inclusive leisure provision were all accepted.  A textual amendment had also been made in response to a scrutiny suggestion.

At the suggestion of a Cabinet Member, a further recommendation to the Cabinet report was proposed, to allow the Executive Director (Communities and People) to make minor and consequential amendments to the strategy as required.

Cabinet resolved to:

1.       Endorse the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy;

2.       Review the activities in the strategy when new insights or data (such as the census) become available, to ensure work remains evidence led; and

3.       Delegate authority to the Executive Director (Communities and People) to make minor and consequential amendments to the strategy.