The Cabinet will, at its meeting on 16 March 2022, consider a report on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. Councillor Shaista Aziz, Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities and Ian Brooke, Head of Community Services have been invited to present the report and answer questions.

The Committee is asked to consider the report and agree any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet.

Cllrs Waite and Humberstone joined the meeting.

Cllr Shaista Aziz, Cabinet Member for Inclusive Communities thanked the Committee for its ongoing work and provided a brief overview of the report, including that the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy:

·       Was a statutory document but the Council wanted to go further to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion was at the centre of all work.

·       Set out some ambitious challenges to the Council in terms of how it was working on equalities.

·       Had been developed on the back of calls for change and ongoing conversations with communities and that communities across Oxford had become more vocal on equalities issues, which was welcomed.

·       Reflected equalities issues that had been deepened by the pandemic.

·       Aimed to strengthen oversight, accountability and scrutiny of equalities issues and promote cultural change.

·       Was the overarching document for other documents including the Anti-racism Charter and the Thriving Communities Strategy.

Ian Brooke, Head of Community Services set out how the Strategy development work had been conducted, which had included the use of focus groups in order to understand communities’ lived experience. Stephen Gabriel, Executive Director for Communities and People outlined the importance of governance arrangements and highlighted that he Chaired the internal Equalities Steering Group. He gave assurance that equality, diversity and inclusion was high on the agenda and the Strategy would provide the framework for driving work forward.

The Committee commended the Strategy and raised a number of points, including:

·       Proposals to improve Member oversight via the Scrutiny Committee – the Scrutiny Officer confirmed that it was for the Committee to decide whether this piece of work was taken forward when it defined its priorities for the next municipal year.

·       Understanding and addressing the needs of faith groups – in response to questions, Cllr Aziz felt that the Council needed to develop a far better understanding of faith-based communities in the City in order to address their needs, which would be an ongoing piece of work.

·       Facilities for community groups – the Committee had concerns about the wording related to the fifth action point on page 20 of the agenda reports pack. Cllr Aziz advised that the point was trying to highlight the fact that there was no Council resource for new purpose-built facilities for specific groups, but agreed that the wording needed amending to better reflect that.

·       Inclusive services – Members thought it would be good to see an action related to provision of inclusive leisure services.

·       Accountability – the Committee wanted assurance that actions contained in the Strategy would be monitored and progress fed back to communities in a systematic way and that Members would receive information on how things have changed over the course of the reporting period as a result of insights received from communities.

·       Free community WiFi – the Strategy heavily referenced digitisation and the Committee noted that some groups and individuals were excluded from the process due to lack of access to WiFi. It was felt that free WiFi should be provided in Council facilities and referenced in the Strategy.  

·       Reporting back – an annual equality, diversity and inclusion report to Scrutiny on progress related to the actions contained in the Strategy was requested. This suggestion was welcomed by Cllr Aziz and officers.

·       Cashless transactions – there were concerns about the move to completely cashless interactions with customers as this excluded some people. It was suggested that more detail was required on what people who could not access cashless services should do, along with how that linked to other information contained in the Strategy (e.g. debt work). The Executive Director for Communities and People confirmed that thinking around this work was already in train.

·       Statistics – the statistics used were pre-pandemic and therefore outdated. The census data was due to be published in May 2022 which would aid the Council’s understanding of the impact of the pandemic on inequalities and the Committee wanted to know what plans were in place to review the data in the Strategy and update it in light of the census data. The Executive Director for Communities and People confirmed there would be a corporate piece of work undertaken related to the census data.

·       Modern Slavery – in response to questions, Cllr Aziz advised that the Council had a dedicated Modern Slavery Officer and she would ensure engagement with them so that the Council could assure itself that Modern Slavery was sufficiently represented in the Strategy. The Executive Director for Communities and People advised that there was already a lot of work going on around Modern Slavery.

·       Presenting areas of change – it was suggested that when highlighting change, it would be useful to have a commentary on statistics and measures to show whether they were on track, making steady progress or backsliding and outlining any actions being taken as a result. It was also suggested that separation of actions in plans into things already being done versus novel actions would be helpful. Cllr Aziz said that she and officers would take the suggestions away and work on them.

·       Language – the Committee asked for some of the language to be updated to reflect currently accepted language. Specific reference was made to the use of ‘BAME’ and ‘non-heterosexual’ on page 16 of the agenda reports pack. Cllr Aziz agreed to ask officers to update the language. The Executive Director for Communities and People added that the Equalities Steering Group was due to consider issues related to language and specifically the use of ‘BAME’.

·       Black Lives Matter – a question was asked about the actions Oxford City Council would take to address slavery reparations (e.g. Bristol City Council passed a motion related to this). Cllr Aziz advised that Oxford and Bristol had different contexts and she did not think the Strategy could go into the detail of reparations or make it a priority as there was not the capacity or expertise in the Council. She added that links needed to be made with experts in the City related to reparations.

·       Training on equality, diversity and inclusion – a question was asked about the scope for ongoing training from people with expertise in the area. Cllr Aziz advised there was a Member training budget and that Members could suggest ideas for training topics, but acknowledged there was limited time and resource.

Cllr Aziz thanked the Committee for its robust feedback and pointed out that equalities issues had to belong to everyone, so it was good to have so much engagement from Scrutiny.

The Committee resolved to recommend to Cabinet that:

·       The Council provides community WiFi in all its community and leisure centres.

·       The Council ensures that potential exclusionary impacts of moving towards cashless provision on relevant vulnerable residents are mitigated.

·       The Council explicitly references in its policy the need for inclusive leisure provision, particularly women-only classes, crèche provision at leisure centres, and free or subsidised activities.

·       The Council undertakes additional engagement with faith communities to understand their needs and support their contribution towards asset based community development.

·       The Council removes bullet point 5 on page 10 of the draft Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Cllr Aziz and the Head of Community Services left the meeting and did not return.