Agenda and minutes

In the absence of Reverend Cox, Councillor Hasina Khan took the Chair and welcomed everyone to the meeting.

AGREED – That the minutes of the Equality Forum held on 9 April 2015 be confirmed as a correct record for signature by the Chair.

Disabled Go have been working in partnership with Chorley Council to develop disabled and dementia friendly venue access guides.  They provide detailed access information on a range of venues across Chorley enabling visitors and residents to reach an informed judgement about the suitability of venues before making the most of what Chorley has to offer.  Disabled Go consulted with members of the equality forum at the start of the project and they are now looking to share progress and gain any further feedback on the venue guides.

The Chair welcomed Anna Borthwick, Director of Disabled Go to the Forum, who had been invited to talk about her organisation, the work taken place in partnership with Chorley Council, and the launch of the Chorley access guide.

The aim of the organisation, which was founded in 2000, was to find practical ways of providing disabled people with greater independence and choice.  This aim was developed into the first online Access Guide which was published in 2002.  Disabled Go was now the leading provider of online access information with 125,000 access guides available on their website.

Disabled Go had recently been working in partnership with Chorley Council to develop disabled and dementia friendly venue access guides.  The guides provide detailed access information on a range of venues across Chorley enabling visitors and residents to reach an informed judgement about the suitability of venues before making the most of what Chorley has to offer. 

Surveyors employed by Disabled Go survey venues and record all practical aspects of the premises including the width of doors, the size and colour of the disabled toilet cubicle etc.  They also take a significant amount of photographs of the venue.  Once completed the information was made available online for anyone to access. 

To mark the launch of Chorley’s access guide a special event would be held on 8 April 2016.

Members of the Forum asked a variety of questions, and made suggestions on the types of aids to be included on the website, all of which were noted.

To view Chorley’s access guide click on the following link –

 http://www.disabledgo.com/organisations/chorley-council/main#VenueListing

On behalf of the Forum, the Chair thanked Anna for attending this meeting.

The Council has a duty to develop and publish equality objectives every 4 years. Equality objectives help focus attention on the priority equality issues for Chorley in order to deliver improvements in policy making, service delivery and employment.  We are now in the process of reviewing objectives and would like feedback from the forum to help establish new objectives from April 2016.  The current objectives can be found on the Council website http://chorley.gov.uk/Pages/AtoZ/Equality-information.aspx

Victoria Willett, Performance and Partnership Manager gave a presentation on the draft equality objectives proposed following a review by the Council set to be implemented in April 2016.

The Council’s last set of equality objectives published in 2012 were due to be updated and published in April 2016.  At the same time the Council was updating its Equality Scheme document, which was being reviewed and updated to ensure the Council still met its equality duties under the Equality Act 2010.

Members of the Forum were reminded of the equality objectives that had been set in 2012, in response to the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, which had imposed duties on all public bodies, including local councils.  The purpose of the Council’s equality objectives was to strengthen the Council’s performance against the general equality duty through providing focus on achieving specific outcomes.

The proposed objectives for 2016, including the measures and targets were detailed as follows –

At the invitation of the Performance and Partnership Manager, members of the Forum discussed within small groups, the proposed objectives and were encouraged to provide written feedback by the completion of a questionnaire circulated prior to the start of the meeting.

The Performance and Partnership Manager advised that a public consultation would also be carried out via the Council’s website with paper copies available on request.  All feedback and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.EF.4

There were no issues raised from any of the equality strands.

The next meeting of the Equality Forum will be held on 9 June 2016, the time and the venue to be confirmed.

Future meetings of the Equality Forum will be held on the following dates:

·        13 October 2016

·        13 February 2017

Future dates of the Forum had been scheduled as follows -

·        28 July 2016 (This is a new date to that agreed at the meeting)

·        13 October 2016

·        13 February 2017

All meetings would take place at 6.30pm unless informed otherwise, and the venue for each meeting would be confirmed in due course.

At the close of the meeting the Chair thanked everyone for their attendance and encouraged them to remain to take part in a networking opportunity.