Ayrshire
1.0 REVIEW OF THE RACE EQUALITY SCHEME 2003
1.1 The Board's Statutory Duty
The Board's Race Equality Scheme has been prepared to comply with the Board's duties under the Race Relations Act. In brief the Board has a general duty to have regard to the need to: -
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Eliminate unlawful racial discrimination
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Promote equality of opportunity, and
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Promote good race relations
In addition the Board has a specific duty to prepare and publish a Race Equality Scheme. The purpose of the scheme is to set out the functions and or policies that are relevant to meeting the general duty and the arrangements that will help to meet the duty.
1.2 The Race Equality Scheme 2003
The Board first prepared a Race Equality Scheme in 2003. This revised scheme is based on the 2003 Scheme but has been developed to take on board the lessons learned and to include new initiatives to promote Race Equality.
What has been achieved in the last 3 years?
1.3 Training for Race Equality
Ayrshire Valuation Joint Board have participated in training developed by South Ayrshire Council (our lead authority) in partnership with Community Planning Partners. This training has been attended by all Ayrshire Valuation Joint Board staff. The training consists of an introduction to race equality and exercises to raise awareness of race equality issues. It goes on to invite participants to consider the relevance of race equality to the services in which they are involved.
1.4 Ethnic, Gender and Disability Monitoring
The Board has in place a system for gathering, analysing the ethnic background of staff, the gender of staff and disabled staff. Statistics are compiled for all staff, applicants for employment/promotion and staff leaving the employment of the Board.
See Appendix (1)
1.5 Improving information to our stakeholders on all inquiry forms
Ayrshire Valuation Joint Board have established, though our lead authority, that, other than English, the next most common languages spoken in Ayrshire are Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. The Board issues many enquiry forms both statutory and information request forms. The annual Electoral Registration Canvass Form and Revaluation and Valuation Notices compile our bulk issues. A statement, in all of the languages above, is now included on these bulk issues which informs the recipients on how to proceed if further information is required on the content of the form.
1.6 Provide Translation Services
Ayrshire Valuation Joint Board staff now have access to the translation facilities provided through “Language Line”. This is a telephone system, which can be accessed by staff who encounter members of the public whose first language is not English. All staff have received training in the use of “language line”.
1.7 Complaints Policy considers impact on racial equality
Our complaints form now requires the complainer to indicate his/her ethnic background. Since introducing this request, the few complaints received by the Board indicate that there have been no complaints lodged by black and ethnic minority groups.
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