Equality and Diversity Monitoring
Why the Council asks for personal information
What is Equality and Diversity monitoring?
“Equality and Diversity monitoring” is the name the Council
gives to personal information we collect about the people who use
our services or work for us.
Wherever you go, people want to know your business. Your age,
gender, sexuality, race, religion, whether you’re disabled…Where
does all this information go?
It goes to help to make things better.
It tells local authorities where to direct their services; it
shows us if certain people aren’t making the most of them; and it
makes sure that you get the right slice of what you’re paying
for.
We can’t change things without your help.
What information does the Council ask for on its diversity
monitoring form?
We’re all told to watch who we give our
personal information to, due to identity theft. But when you give
information about yourself to us, you can be sure that it will only
be used to make things better. In fact we usually won’t even know
it’s you.
The full Council equality and diversity monitoring form
asks for seven pieces of information. They are:
- Gender
- Age
- Disability
- Sexual Orientation
- Religion or Belief
- National Identity
- Ethnicity
Yes, occasionally you may fill in a form with
your name and address. But the section with information about age,
race, sexuality etc. is almost always dealt with separately.
Your personal information is about you – the
rest is statistics. And if you are an employee and we keep it on
file, it will only ever be to make sure that you as a white/black,
older/young, married/single, straight/gay, man/woman are being
properly catered for.
Why does the Council need this information?
There are a number of reasons why the Council needs personal
information from you:
1. The Council has a legal and a moral duty to eliminate all
forms of discrimination when employing people and when delivering
services.
However it is hard to measure whether we are discriminating
against a certain group of people, unless we monitor who we are
employing and who uses our services.
For example, we might discover through our monitoring that we
interview and employ very few gay and lesbian people. We can then
encourage more people from this community to apply for jobs by
thinking carefully about the way in which we recruit for certain
posts, and where we advertise jobs.
2. Wyre Forest District Council is committed to delivering
excellent services, but we can only do this if we understand who
our customers are and what particular needs they have.
For example, we might discover through our monitoring that very
few young people use our leisure services. We can then look more
closely at how leisure services work, their timing and the kind of
services they offer, and change things to make it more attractive
for young people. Or, if there are lots of older people in an area,
perhaps more Dial-a-Ride services are needed. People from certain
groups have particular health needs: there are higher rates of
breast cancer among lesbians, for instance, so provision has to be
made. Perhaps your first language is not English and you would
prefer information leaflets in your own language.
You can now see why we need to know.
Do I have to answer the questions?
No, you don’t have to answer any question if you prefer not to.
However as the results will be kept strictly confidential, and it
may help us to improve our services, we would encourage you to
answer as many questions as possible.
Why do you need to know what kind of disability or illness I
have?
The Council, along with most other Local Authorities, has
adopted the “Social Model of Disability” which means that we
recognise that social barriers are what disable people, not their
impairment. Sometimes, however, we will ask specifically about your
impairment. This is because, in practical terms it helps us to know
about our customers’ impairments so that we can design our services
according to your needs, and remove as many barriers as
possible.
For example, we might discover through monitoring that a lot of
people with a learning disability use the swimming pool. We can
then ensure that all swimming pool information is produced in
easy-read or symbol versions.
How have the ethnicity categories been decided upon?
The six main ethnicity categories we have used are those used in
the 2001 Census. This makes it easier for us to analyse
information. Additional sub-categories such as “Traveller” or
“Romany/Gypsy” have been included as a result of past research in
Worcestershire about how people like to describe themselves. You
can mark more than one box in this section if you want to.
What will the Council do with the information?
The information will only be used to monitor services and
employment. It will not be used to identify you, and no one will
contact you because of the answers you give.
All the information will be stored securely in line with the
Data Protection Act 1998. Your answers will only be retained for as
long as is considered necessary for monitoring purposes and then
they will be destroyed.
