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Oldham is a diverse Borough. It is home to people from a wide range of different racial and cultural backgrounds, people with different religious beliefs, disabled people, children and older people, women and men, people who are heterosexual, and lesbians and gay men. We value this diversity and think it is important to celebrate and embrace the different contributions, perspectives and experience that people in our community have.
We also recognise that each person’s experiences is different, that are people who experience disadvantage and that some groups of people generally experience more discrimination than others. Deprivation can affect all local communities, but problems of deprivation and exclusion are most acute among particular groups - such as high rates of unemployment among young people, the risk of crime in particular neighbourhoods, and poor health in most of our communities. We recognise that discrimination can often occur on the basis of ethnic group (race), gender, disability, sexual orientation, age or religion and our Generic Equality Scheme and Plans aim to address some of the pressing issues that these groups face locally.
As the largest employer in the Borough and the provider of vital services we need to be leading by example in how we tackle disadvantage and promote equality in our recruitment and our service delivery.
An equal society protects and promotes equality, real freedom and substantive opportunity to live in the ways people value and would chose, co that everyone can flourish.
An equal society recognises people’s different needs, situations and goals and removes the barriers that limit what people can do and be.*
* Communities and Local Government publications
Diversity is about recognising and valuing difference in its broadest sense. It is about creating a working culture and practices that recognise, respect, value and harness difference for the benefit of the organisation and the individual, including staff and members of the public.
There are various pieces of legislation that require the Council to tackle discrimination and promote Equality. Some of these relate to employment and training, others services and goods and others relate to all our public functions. For more information and guidance on these please see our Equality Legislation page.
In response to the requirement under the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, and the Equality Act 2006, to develop Race, Disability and Gender Equality Schemes; the Council has developed a Generic Equality Scheme (PDF 762Kb). This Generic Equality Scheme, meets the requirements of all 3 pieces of legislation, but reflects the Councils commitment to address all aspects of inequality and thus addresses other areas of equality such as age, sexual orientation, religion and belief, refugees and asylum Seekers, people with dependents and people with an offending past.
The Council is committed to improving its performance in relation to Equality & Diversity and to help measure its performance has adopted the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG). In 2004/05 The Council achieved level 3 of Equality Standard for Local Government and aims to achieve level 4 in 2008/09. For more information, please see the Equality Standard for Local Government page.
The Equalities and Diversity Team
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