Equality monitoring is the process we use to collect, store and analyse data about people's diversity. It is useful to highlight possible inequalities, investigate their underlying causes and remove any unfairness or disadvantage. Monitoring, therefore, is not an end in itself but provides the data for the review of policies and for identifying areas requiring improvement.
The Council collects equality monitoring information for a number of reasons broadly related to the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010.
Usually, equality monitoring relates to one or more of the nine protected characteristics established by the Act: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
Why we monitor
The Council has recognised that equality monitoring is an important way of assessing our services. Monitoring is an essential part of tackling inequality and discrimination and, if done effectively, will help us check whether our policies, services and organisational culture are meeting the needs of our community.
The Council is producing a standard equality monitoring form that will be used for all internal and external equality monitoring. Implementing a standard equality monitoring form will enable the same information to be collected from across the different services. This will mean we are collecting the same information and will assist us to see whether different services are meeting the needs of the community.
What we do with the information
Any data collected will be analysed and reported on and can be used within the Council for:
- setting targets
- reviewing our service delivery by comparing our performance over time
- developing services and assisting with making changes
We are required to monitor a number of factors to identify and tackle any inequalities in employment practices. These include:
- the total number of employees
- the number of applicants for employment
- the number of applicants who apply for training and the training given
- the number of grievances and the results of any investigation
- the number of employees who have had disciplinary action, including outcomes
- the number of employees leaving the Council's employment
Equality monitoring in employment helps us to understand the profile of our workforce and using the Census as a benchmark we can analyse how our practices and procedures affect different groups and confirm if people are being treated fairly at each stage of the recruitment and selection process.