The Council's response to the Equality Duty

Specific equalities duties started to come in to force at the end of January 2012.

The specific duties will ensure that public bodies are accountable for delivering on the Equality Duty by requiring them to be transparent about their own staff and the public services that they deliver, so giving the public the information they need to hold them to account.

The specific duties will require public bodies to publish the following information:

• equality objectives every four years;
• access services/participation rates (to be provided shortly);
• records of how the Council has had due regard to the aims of the duty in decision-making (see Customer Impact Assessments)
  
• customer satisfaction with services, details of feedback and engagement with service users, quantitative and qualitative research with service users (available on Feedbackonline website);
  
• and also to  publish information relating to our employees (for bodies with 150 or more staff) and others affected by their policies and practices (such as service users).

The Council is also making available key documents used by the Council to aid decision making:

• Demographic profile for the Ribble Valley - March 2012