The Council's Equal Opportunities Policies for Employment and Service Delivery set out the Council's commitment to eliminating discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, race, religion or belief, nationality, ethnic origin, age and disability.  Both policies describe the responsibilities for delivering this commitment on members and officers and describe the various initiatives that the Council is undertaking to promote equality of opportunity.  There is also an explanation on each of how the policy will be monitored and how complaints will be dealt with.  

Employment policy

The aim of this policy is to protect job applicants and employees from less favourable treatment or discrimination on any grounds that cannot be justified.  Personnel policies and procedures and regularly monitored to ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and treated in their general employment on the basis of their relevant merits and abilities. 

Service delivery policy

This policy states the Council's commitment to the fair provision of services to all sections of the community, to making the Council, its processes and its services accessible, and ensuring that services are appropriate to meet the differing needs of all sections of the community.  The Council recognises that individuals and groups experience inequality of access to services for a number of reasons, and is committed to identifying and tackling that inequality. 

Removal of Racist Graffiti - policy

The Council recognises that racist (or any other offensive) graffiti will impair the environment for residents, employees and visitors.  Therefore, a policy and procedure has been introduced to remove any graffiti that is reported as quickly as possible.  This service is provided by the Direct Services Organisation (DSO) and includes the council's own properties, as well as private ones.  Graffiti will only be removed on private property with the owner's consent.