Equality staff monitoring opens doors to Council employment

As a major employer, we have an obligation to monitor the diversity profile of staff who apply for employment at the Council and staff who work for the Council. Sometimes people question whether this is ‘political correctness’ and do not see the value.

However by doing this we discovered that only 1% of staff declare a disability, and that the numbers of staff below the age of 25 is far lower that it should be, if we are to reflect the public who use our services. 

To address this we have set up a number of programmes that give an opportunity to people on Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance, as well as young people on benefits, to work for the Council on a trial basis, and then compete for a job when a vacancy arises. 

The programmes have included training run with local colleges so people can learn about the Council. One of the things we learnt early on was that many people find Council application forms too complicated, so we have included some support and coaching in how to make a good application. 

These programmes have demonstrated a number great success stories.