Equality and diversity
Equality underpins our Vision of making Allerdale a great place
to Live, Work and Visit and we are aware that effectively
delivering equality of opportunity for all is critical to the long
term success of Allerdale, Cumbria and the North West Region.
Our Equality Scheme 2011 can be downloaded below
Allerdale;
- has a population of 75 people per square
kilometre compared with the northwest average of 480. 69.8%
of people live in rural areas
- lacks good transport links because many
people live in sparse rural areas. This affects the accessibility
of further education, services, jobs and leisure activities,
particularly for older and young people
- 99.4% of the population classed themselves as
white, 85.2% of people classing themselves as Christian and a
further 9% claiming no religion. This means we have to work hard to
see difference as an opportunity and ensure people are not
discriminated against on the grounds of race or religion
- has some areas of high deprivation close to
areas of extremely low deprivation. Some wards are amongst the 10%
most deprived areas in the country
- has a higher population of ageing and older
people than the national average
- lacks enough affordable housing.
Equality
Successes;
- refurbishment to Keswick Leisure Pool
incorporating an accessible facility with disabled shower, toilet
and changing facilities. Splash and Smile is
a new session in which disabled children and their families are
able to swim for free and use a range of
equipment
- the Council works closely with the local
Constabulary to tackle hate crime and has become an official third
party reporting centre.
- a Pathway to Arts Scheme has enabled people
in receipt of Incapacity Benefit to gain confidence and skills for
vocational training and employment
- we provide Language Line translation
service to help make its services accessible to non-English
speakers
- in 2009 the Council reviewed its services and
consulted with Cumbria Disability Network, AWAZ and OutREACH
Cumbria on proposed service changes before these were
implemented.
Our challenges;
- to gather appropriate information from groups
within the local community to make sure we deliver services based
on what our communities really want
- to make more information about the Council
accessible
- developing a balanced housing market and
consideration for the Gypsy & Traveller community.
To address these challenges
we;
- use the equality information we gather to
better know our customers' needs and use the information to improve
the way we deliver all our services in financially challenging
times
- ensure all information is in plain English,
and have provided access to translation services
- work with the County Council to provide
improved public transportation links
- provide more services closer to the customer
through the provision of joint and shared services with other
public sector partners.
- will continue working with our partner
organisations and the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership
(CDRP) to address the cause of racially, disability and motivated
attacks and reduce unlawful discrimination
- support the West Cumbria Equality and
Diversity Partnership in conjunction with Copeland Borough
Council
Contact us
If you have any issues or experiences on how we provide our
services, or ideas on how we could improve in relation to age,
gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and belief or would like
more information, please contact us (contact details to the left of
this page).