East Ayrshire Equality Outcomes 2025-2029

Survey Link for East Ayrshire Equality Outcomes 2025-2029

Our Core Values

East Ayrshire Council's core values are:

• Access
• Equality
• Partnership
• Quality

Central to these values is a commitment to combating all forms of discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity.

Our pledge

We will prevent discrimination against service users and employees concerning:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender Reassignment
• Marriage and Civil Partnership
• Pregnancy and Maternity
• Race
• Religion and Belief
• Sex
• Sexual Orientation

as set out under the Equality Act 2010.

Equality Outcomes

We have published our equality outcomes and equality mainstreaming report which states how we will fulfil our commitment to promoting equality of opportunity, eliminating discrimination and promoting good relations between communities.

East Ayrshire Council (EAC) and the East Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership (EAHSCP) are required to develop and publish a set of equality outcomes at least every four years and must show how we intend to meet our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance the equality of opportunity and foster good relations between communities.

Our equality outcomes aim to make a difference for our communities and workforce who share protected characteristics to improve their life chances.

Working together

The Council developed shared equality outcomes with our partners across Ayrshire.

Building on the close working links we have between many public sector organisations, we proposed working more closely with our partner organisations to develop our equality outcomes.

This work recognises that because all organisations are delivering, or supporting the delivery of, services to the same communities, their experience could be improved if approaches and consistent and this could be driven through the development of joint equality outcomes.

We have published our equality outcomes and equality mainstreaming reports which state how we will fulfil our commitment to promoting equality of opportunity, eliminating discrimination and promoting good relations between communities.

East Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership provides locality-based health and social care services for people throughout their lives: from birth through childhood, teenage years and adulthood.

Our equality outcomes are aimed at making a difference for our communities and workforce who share protected characteristics to improve their life chances.

Shared objectives

The Council and the EAHSCP developed shared equality outcomes with our partners across Ayrshire. Considering the close working links between many public sector organisations, it was proposed that closer work should be undertaken around the development of equality outcomes.

More importantly, as all organisations are delivering, or supporting the delivery of, services to the same communities, their experience could be improved if approaches were consistent and this could be driven through the development of joint equality outcomes.

Therefore, a decision was taken that public sector organisations across Ayrshire would develop a shared set of equality outcomes whilst still maintaining individual accountability for their part.

These overarching equality outcomes build on already established partnership working relationships and outline the actions and activities to be undertaken to provide a range of quality services for local people.

Moving forward to our next set of Equality Outcomes, it is of prime importance that the Equality Outcomes we identify reflect the diverse needs of the population of East Ayrshire and the range of services delivered by the Council and the Health and Social Care Partnership.

In addition, the equality outcomes will also need to provide a focus for our actions over the next four years although they will not encompass everything that we do to address and reduce inequality across our Local Authority.

It should be noted that the Council and the HSCP will develop their own set of equality outcomes.

Our equality outcomes were last reviewed in 2020 and it was agreed that we would carry forward the four equality outcomes that were said in 2017 which were:

1. In Ayrshire, people experience safe and inclusive communities.
2. In Ayrshire, people have equal opportunity to access and shape public services.
3. In Ayrshire, people have opportunities to fulfil their potential throughout life.
4. In Ayrshire, public bodies will be inclusive and diverse employers.

We are striving to improve services for our communities and workforce. Some of these improvements include;

• Developing employee networks to ensure that our employees feel valued, listened to, and have a voice within the organisation.
• Developing and delivering multiple awareness-raising campaigns such as:
  • Holocaust Memorial Day
  • International Women's Day
  • LGBT History Month
  • Black History Month; and many more.
• Planning effective interventions across East Ayrshire to support young people from Protected Characteristic groups to gain access to and sustain training/employment.
• Providing support for the unemployed, particularly people with disabilities and women, and residents to overcome health barriers concerning economic activity.
• Organising an event with the major transport providers across Ayrshire. At this event, we discussed issues surrounding connectivity, and how to develop solutions to the issues raised. This allowed community members to ask direct questions to providers such as Stagecoach, Scotrail, SPT, and others to provide accessible local travel connectivity across Ayrshire.
• Becoming the first local authority in Scotland to host a Silver Pride event for older people in the LGBTQ+ community. We did this to highlight the needs of the senior members of the community who currently reside in our care homes.
• Organising a successful conference across Ayrshire with our community planning partners to help address Hate Crime. We did this to ensure a collective understanding of the cause and impact of hate crimes. This allowed partners to come together to develop solutions on how to tackle hate crimes.

Please take the survey displayed below to make sure your voice is heard in the creation of our Equality Outcomes.

Also, feel free to contribute to our 'Ideas' board. This is to suggest what you believe should be our Equality Outcomes. [These ideas are on public display].

Thank you for your contribution to this survey.