Decision details

Tom Rutland, Public Health Promotion Manager - Equalities, presented a report explaining the public sector equality duty and Scrutiny’s role in that. He encouraged members to include equalities in conversations at Scrutiny and challenge items brought to Scrutiny in relation to protected characteristics.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:-

• This is a very useful reminder.
• For the previous item, didn’t consider equalities as the priority is keeping people alive.
  • It’s about if there are differences in accessing the service, is it proportional to the Somerset population? Are there certain groups they are not seeing and asking why? For example, some ethnic minority groups think they have to pay for drug and alcohol treatment.
  • Equality is about always asking the question. Could there be a difference, if there is, what is it, what do we understand, what does it tell us?

The chair summed up the presentation and thanked the presenter. He proceeded to read out the recommendations, which were agreed.

The committee agreed to:

·       Reconfirm their commitment to equality Due Regard being part of their Scrutiny function.

·       Support further training opportunities that are provided for the delivery of this commitment.