Inclusion and Diversity Strategy 2024-2027
Introduction
Kirklees Council is proud to be diverse and inclusive. This Inclusion and Diversity Strategy set out our ambitions for the future.
Our vision for inclusion and diversity
Cllr Amanda Pinnock, Portfolio Holder for Education & Communities
Our vision is to foster a culture of inclusion and diversity, ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone. Embracing and celebrating the diversity of our workforce and the communities we serve helps us create a more cohesive, innovative, and effective organisation. A positive and supportive work environment where staff feel valued and respected helps attract and retain the best talent, enabling everyone to contribute fully. By valuing and acting on inclusion and diversity, we can better respond to the changing needs of the communities in Kirklees, making it both the right and smart focus for our organisation.
Our progress
We have made a lot of progress in recent years including:
- Policy evaluation: Redesigned to better assess the impact on inclusion and diversity.
- Staff development: Expanded learning opportunities to enhance cultural competence and confidence among staff.
- Equity understanding: Supported employee networks to refine our approach to equity.
Challenges ahead
However, we know there is a lot more to do. There are deep and unacceptable inequalities, disadvantage, and discrimination that affect the lives and opportunities of people in our country every day. Recent events like the global pandemic, cost-of-living pressures, wars, and racist riots have highlighted these issues, reminding us of the deep-rooted inequalities many face daily.
In this difficult context, we recognise the need to ensure our organisation is truly inclusive and diverse. We must listen and learn to our diverse communities and employees, challenge existing inequalities, and collaborate with other sectors to promote inclusion and diversity. Failing to do so risks losing trust, respect, and talent, and missing the chance to create a more effective organisation with better outcomes for everyone.
The strategy
This Inclusion and Diversity Strategy is an important milestone in our journey to become a more inclusive organisation. It builds on and renews our commitment to our recent achievements and it seeks to make significant progress as we aim to meet the current and future needs of our diverse communities and employees. The strategy outlines key areas of activity that show our organisational values of kindness, inclusion, and pride in action, which will lead to better outcomes. It is based on engagement with a range of stakeholders, including staff networks and community groups, and the action planning behind the strategy will be regularly refreshed so it remains relevant to the changing contexts and experiences of those we work with and serve.
This strategy is a recommitment to create a more inclusive and diverse organisation, where our people and those we work with have equal access to opportunities and resources and feel valued for who they are. It is a recommitment to enable more inclusive communities, caring about what communities care about and building trust and belonging. Through the path set out here, we can achieve these ambitions and deliver better outcomes for everyone.
Ambition: Our 2024-27 priority objectives
Our objectives go beyond compliance and are based on our ambitions. We set them out against four themes from the Local Government Association's Equality Framework.
- Embedding our commitment to the Inclusive Communities Framework.
- Higher quality integrated impact assessments more broadly used.
- Working closely with ward councillors as local place-leaders, enable place-based responses to the unique challenges and opportunities in each place, such as conversations between faiths and supporting leadership programmes for underrepresented groups.
- Understanding poverty and mitigating the inequitable impact of cost-of-living pressures.
- An inclusive approach to loneliness.
- Enhanced support for care-experienced people.
- Embedding our commitment to inclusion through our Council Plan and key partnership strategies.
- Use the social model of disability to promote inclusion for disabled people.
- Organisational improvement and transformation of our day-to-day work.
- Developing champions and a community of practice
- The development and use of data and intelligence, benchmarking, and looking for best practice to inform planning and decision-making.
- Responding to regional and national opportunities and challenges that affect our objectives, including legislation and funding.
- Embedding our commitment to inclusion through our Access to Services Strategy.
- Developing our data about our residents and customers.
- Promoting inclusive customer access to services.
- Embedding our commitment to inclusion through the People Strategy.
- Promoting inclusion through workforce planning, including pathways for underrepresented groups that enable better representation in our leadership positions.
- Enhancing our workforce data, with a focus on race and disability.
- Being an inclusive employer of choice.
- Supporting Employee Networks to play a bigger role in promoting inclusion and supporting the organisation's priorities.
- Continuing to develop our excellent learning and organisational development offer to promote inclusion.
Our values
Just like individuals, our organisation's values guide the way we think and act. In our response to the pandemic we have seen our values in action, under incredible pressure and in a rapidly changing environment. Read more about our values.
Latest news
Keep up-to-date with the council's brilliant work on inclusion on Kirklees Together: Inclusion