Case Study - Leeds City Council

Background

Championing Diversity was a West Yorkshire wide programme offered to employers to help them develop their management of diversity. This included an assessment of the company’s progress to date and extensive help over 18 months to move them in the direction they wanted to be in the future.

The Organisation

Shaping the companies into ‘Champions of Diversity’ in their industry, the programme worked with Kay Sidebottom, Member Development Officer and Geoff Turnbull, Senior Project Officer at Leeds City Council to develop their approach to diversity. Leeds City Council provides over 500 different services to the people of Leeds. Leeds is a lively city, rich in culture and heritage with lots to explore. More than 750,000 people live within the city’s boundaries and over 100,000 people come to work in the city centre every day.

Impact “Our members who took part in the Diversity Driver process (a perception-based self assessment audit ) found it very useful and interesting. It brought out a lot of ideas and issues which otherwise might not have been raised. It significantly raised the profile of the agenda with Members and enabled us to tackle some long standing potential barriers to delivering fair and equal services and employment to all the citizens of Leeds. It has helped us to start addressing some issues which we have known for some time were holding us back as an organisation in this area. All participants were extremely honest and open about their experiences and were prepared to consider ideas and suggestions from a different viewpoint A number of councilors particularly enjoyed the icebreaker exercise where we were asked to reveal something about ourselves that no one else would know. This made us realize and appreciate each other’s differences and set the tone for the session.”

What did we do?

A report was presented to the Scrutiny Board for Central and Corporate functions. A number of changes and actions were proposed, which were accepted as recommendations and then put forward to the councilor with overall responsibility for Equality and Diversity. The impact of the Driver exercise was therefore felt at the highest level of the council.

What did we learn?

The importance of embedding equality and diversity issues into all the learning and development activities which are to be offered. In doing this, we can achieve a holistic approach to equality and it will not be seen as an isolated activity which can be ‘opted out of’ Some councilors admitted that they needed to think more creatively about how to engage certain groups of people within their ward.