At Cambridgeshire County Council we are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), as set out in our EDI Strategy. We are dedicated to sustaining an inclusive working environment for our colleagues and reducing inequalities and enhancing inclusion and cohesion within our community.  

Our EDI Strategy

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy is a key cross-cutting strategy which will enable the council to achieve its vision and ambitions so that Cambridgeshire can become greener, fairer, and more caring in the ways that are most suitable to the variety of people, and diverse communities we serve. 

This strategy builds on the successes and learning from our 2018-2022 Single Equality Strategy and sets out our approach and objectives moving forward. Whilst we have made great progress to advance our EDI agenda, we must be open and honest about our journey, and we recognise that there is still a lot of work to do. We are truly committed to leading this work, reducing inequality, strengthening and developing good community relations, and challenging discrimination, we must take targeted action to deliver meaningful and sustainable change. 

To drive this work forward, the strategy sets out three themes:  

1. Our workforce: Foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment that attracts and retains diverse people who feel valued, respected, and empowered.  

2. Our communities: Further understand and work with our diverse communities across Cambridgeshire, developing local solutions which address the needs of our communities.  

3. Our services: Ensure people who use our services and residents have good quality public services that meet the diverse needs of our communities. 

Disability Confident Employer  

As an organisation, we have successfully renewed our Level 2 Disability Confident award, this positively recognises the actions that we take to recruit, support and retain disabled people.   

To renew our Level 2, a thorough self-assessment was undertaken to explore what we are currently doing as an organisation to support colleagues’ individual needs, including disability, neurodivergence, mental, physical and long-term health conditions.  The self-assessment also identifies what additional steps we can take as an organisation to continue to ensure our workplace is a supportive environment for all colleagues.   

Evidence throughout the self-assessment highlighted some of the existing work, including:   

·        Providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process, including offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job.  

·        Proactively offering and making reasonable adjustments as required.   

·        Supporting employees to manage their disabilities or health conditions through various ways including: a new Wellbeing passport, reasonable adjustment guidance, support for applying to Access to Work and a Mental Health support service employer toolkit (Maximus).

Anti-racism

We would like to explicitly highlight our commitment to anti-racism. To us, being anti-racist means actively identifying and opposing racism, being consciously and visibly anti-racist. We do not accept any forms of bullying, harassment, discrimination or any other unacceptable behaviours in our communities and workplace. We can, and must, do better and we have a responsibility to take action against all aspects of overt and systemic racism. 

UNISON Anti-racism Charter 

On 24 May 2022, Cambridgeshire County Council joined in partnership with the trade union UNISON to commit to becoming an anti-racist organisation. This committed the Council and its senior management to a range of pledges designed to prevent racial bias. 

Staff EDI Network – IDEAL  

The Council has an EDI Staff Network, Inclusion, Diversity, Equality for All (IDEAL) and peer support groups. IDEAL is a network for employees, workers, recognised trade unions and elected members.  

Its role is to:  

·        Promote equality, diversity and inclusion within our workforce - Support networks that promote equality, diversity and inclusion for employees, workers, recognised trade unions and elected members.  

·        Improve the diversity of our workforce to reflect the communities we serve as well as to promote and celebrate diversity across the Council. 

·        Raising the profile of equality, diversity and inclusion through engaging with senior management and communication campaigns.  

·        Working with partners to link with events and campaigns 

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