A Diverse Workforce

Buckinghamshire County Council is committed to achieving equality of opportunity as an employer of people, provider of services, educator and community leader. The Council places considerable emphasis on understanding, acceptance and appreciation of individual differences.

The County Council believes that valuing Diversity can be a resource because it can produce many business benefits for the organisation as a whole and for individual employees and users of County Council services: For the organisation, the main proven benefits are:

• Recruiting from a wider pool of experienced and skilled candidates which provides the County Council with a greater choice when filling vacancies.
  
  
• Retaining these skills and the associated cost savings from lower staff turnover and reduced absenteeism.
  
  
• Enhancing organisational flexibility and reducing costs by increased retention of staff. Fourthly, ensuring that services are equally accessible to all.

The County Council, Senior Managers and Members are responsible for:

• acting as champions on equality within the organisation.
  
  
• ensuring that all policies and procedures are in line with relevant legislation and good practice guidelines.
  
  
• integrating equality of opportunity into all aspects of local authority activity and recruiting and valuing a workforce that reflects the diverse composition of Buckinghamshire.
  
  
• taking action where there is under representation in the workforce.
  
  
• providing equal access to all service users and potential service users according to need.
  
  
• offering all those who use or might use the council services the opportunity to influence the way their needs are met.
  
  
• seeking to influence partners to ensure a joint commitment to equality of opportunity.
  
  
• requiring voluntary and partner organisations to provide evidence of their commitment to equal opportunities and diversity regarding human resource policies and delivery of services.
  
  
• providing a safe, secure and accessible working environment that values the identities and culture of everyone.

Buckinghamshire County Council will know our Diversity Policy is working well when our workforce reflects the diverse population of Buckinghamshire, access to services is seen to be fair by the population of Buckinghamshire and the criteria against which these decisions are made is transparent and applied fairly throughout the organisation.