Our Equality and Inclusion priorities were established in 2016 and covered a four year period, following a consultation to engage with stakeholders on any concerns across the nine protected characteristics within the Equality Act 2010 to identify and understand opinions around the draft priorities at that time.
After four years, it was time to review and refresh the actions under each priority. We consulted on the actions over a five week period during the winter of 2020.
Feedback from the consultation has assisted in the strengthening our Equality and Inclusion Priorities 2021 – 2025:
Priority 1: Leading by example on equality
- Improve existing equality monitoring systems for service workforce profiling.
- Visibly promote Humberside Fire and Rescue Service as an anti-discriminatory organisation.
- Review and improve the Service’s equality analysis systems to account for our communities and learn from national good practice.
Priority 2: Increasing diversity throughout our workforce
- Visibly promote Humberside Fire and Rescue Service as an employer of choice and positively seek employees from underrepresented groups.
- Improve the recruitment and retention levels for all underrepresented groups.
- Further develop the role of Equality Champions across the Service.
Priority 3: Ensure a safe and fair workplace for all staff
- Raise the awareness of managers and staff to create a safe and fair environment for all staff inclusive of co-workers in protected groups.
- Support staff to establish and utilise diverse staff forums and other ‘voice to power’ mechanisms.
- Support staff through health inequalities and take into account the protected characteristics when reviewing working arrangements.
Priority 4: Continue to improve our knowledge of our diverse communities and how we engage with them
- Actively consult and draw support from leaders of underrepresented communities to guide the steering of our programmes for community engagement and recruitment.
- Work in partnership with local authorities and others to develop organisational learning on community issues to improve our approaches to diverse engagement.
Priority 5: Identifying the fire and other emergency risks linked to multiple disadvantage and discrimination
- Utilise our data to improve our knowledge of multiple disadvantaged and discriminated communities to continually improve our prevention and protection service delivery.
- Utilise our improved equality assessments to guide the direction of prevention and protection engagements in communities that experience multiple disadvantages and/or discrimination.
- Work with our partners to reduce the likelihood of incidents affecting communities that experience multiple disadvantages and/or discrimination.