Agenda item

No urgent matters.

 

 

Question put forward to Annual Council by Mr Ataur-Raziq Gonzalez -

In Denbighshire County Council’s Corporate Plan 2022 to 2027, revised in 2024, there is a section on Equality, Diversity and Human Rights which states;

“We are committed to celebrating diversity and promoting equality in everything we do”

And that you will “engage, where appropriate, with groups that represent people with protected characteristics”.

And, in the Wellbeing assessment section you state your Well-being Impact Assessments are designed to assess the likely impact of proposals on the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Denbighshire, Wales and the world.

Can you therefore tell me what Denbighshire County Council are actively doing to engage with minority groups and ensure their wellbeing needs are addressed within Denbighshire ensuring their views are represented and they are able to feel respected and valued by Denbighshire County Council? 

The Leader, Councillor Jason McLellan, thanked Mr Gonzales for his question.  He explained that the protocol in this matter was that the question would be answered by the Lead Member on Cabinet whose portfolio included the topic of the question and in this instance, the Lead Member was Councillor Julie Matthews who had prepared a detailed response.

 

Councillor Julie Matthews responded as follows –

 

We are committed to celebrating diversity and promoting equality in everything we do to improve the quality of life for everyone living, working and visiting Denbighshire.  Our vision for the future of the Council was developed in partnership with local communities and partners.  Our strategic aim is to be a high performing Council closer to the community. 

 

As you state, Denbighshire County Council’s Corporate Plan makes a strong commitment to equality and diversity.  The Plan contains our equality and wellbeing objectives and these are reported throughout our quarterly reports.  The next report will be an annual report to Council in July.   The Plan is available on our website with our equality objectives clearly identified.  Engaging and listening to the voices of people with protected characteristics, people experiencing socio economic disadvantage and seldom heard groups is always important to us and something we are always trying to improve.  We also consider the impact on the aforementioned groups and consider opportunities to maximise equality through our wellbeing impact assessments or our integrated impact assessments. 

 

Listed bodies like the council, must prepare and publish equality objectives every four years and must involve people who represent the interests of people who share one or more of the protected characteristics and have an interest in the way that the authority carries out its functions. 

 

Our online engagement portal is used constantly to engage and consult on our proposals or what we call, our county conversations and we will soon be engaging to find out what people think of our updated engagement policy and public participation strategy.   We canvas the views of everyone in the community and we identify specific stakeholders that may be affected by a proposal who are wellbeing impact assessments for example for any more detailed engagements.

 

This portal policy and public participation strategy guides the engagement work which is progressed across the council be it with traditionally hard to reach groups by education and children’s services and adult social care and homelessness, within our housing and community service in terms of gypsy roma engagement.  Within our planning public protection and countryside services with our targeted engagement around our local development plan and within our finance and audit service in terms of revenues and benefits.  There is always a great deal of engagement activity going on. 

 

As an example in terms of the development of the Corporate Plan we ran workshops and a survey, we reviewed the information all partners already held from engagements and consultations to avoid asking the same questions again and again.  We explored statistics and research to understand how inequality looks across the county and how it might persist, eg; in term of health outcomes, education or poverty.  There is a great deal of further information published on the Public Services Board website too.  Also via the Conwy and Denbighshire Public Services Board we held a regional interactive community voice forum for representatives of seldom heard groups.  Over 50 organisations attended, additional workshops were offered to deaf and visually impaired forums. 

 

Importantly, every year through our annual stakeholders survey most recently held between September 2023 and February 2024, we consult widely with representative stakeholders in our communities on the content and relevance of our Corporate Plan Objectives particularly around the issues of equality and fairness.   The latest stakeholder survey results will be included in the July report to County Council. 

 

Following the changes to the Corporate Plan earlier this year, we closed what was fairest safe and more equal Board and we enhanced the remit of the Strategic Equality and Diversity Group to include oversight of all equality and diversity matters.  The Group takes a key role in agreeing the content of the statutory public sector equality duty and gender pay gap reports.  It considers Denbighshire’s position in relation to Welsh Governments various equality plans and considers and reviews the quality of Wellbeing Impact Assessments and more recently arranged for WLGA to provide equality and diversity training for members. 

 

The message from engagement work carried out at local, regional and national levels is that we need to improve in terms of involving people in decisions which affect their lives and communities and work to reduce deprivation.  We are already making progress in these areas particularly in relation to social care and community support services.

 

In our Corporate Plan we made a range of pledges to improve, for example, attainment, economic outcomes, housing, community cohesion etc., and we also made a pledge to strengthen our engagement with people with protected characteristics, those experiencing socio economic disadvantage and those who experience discrimination or disadvantage and this is included under what is theme 6 of a well run high performing council.  

 

To this end, we have developed and the Strategic Equality and Diversity Group will be approving, the collation of a comprehensive list of organisations that support people with protected characteristics and those living with socio economic disadvantage in the county, including seldom heard groups. 

 

Additional contacts have been imported to the list from resources including the North Wales Public Sector Equality Network, the Conwy and Denbighshire Community Safety Partnership, and DVSC.  The list will be reviewed annually.   Using the contact list will enable us to strengthen our engagement and communication work and ensuring more equal outcomes for people, including reducing inequalities associated with poverty. The list will be available from the communications and marketing team in the council, available on our Denbighshire County Council website and available to our partners in order to undertake equality engagements. 

 

The well run high performing Board will also be evaluating its current workstreams to ensure we maximise our contribution to this pledge.

 

Supplementary question put forward by Mr Gonzalez –

 

I am a member of the community group called Prestatyn Voices for Peace and on 1 May this year, one of our members emailed the Leader direct asking if you would fly the Palestinian flag on 15 May which is Nakba Day.  Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic which refers to the mass displacement and disposition of Palestinians in 1948.

 

Denbighshire County Council’s Constitution says that you, as Leader of the Council have the authority to give instructions for flying flags at the council offices and lighting up of Denbighshire Leisure buildings on significant occasions. 

 

My colleague received a response this morning from one of the council officers saying that you will not be flying the Palestinian flag as it was against the council’s flag flying policy.   However, this has been done before, in support of oppressed people in other parts of the world.    You lit buildings up for black lives matter in 2020, in 2022 you flew the Ukranian flag and lit up buildings, so I am asking you publicly today, as you say you are so committed to equality, will you demonstrate the equality authorise the flying of the Palestinian flag on Denbighshire’s major buildings and light up Denbighshire Leisure buildings in the colours of the Palestinian flag as you have done for other oppressed people?

 

Response from Lead Member Councillor Julie Matthews –

 

Councillor Matthews thanked Mr Gonzalez for his supplementary question and stated a written response would be provided as soon as possible.