Equality statement 2024

We will undertake the following actions in 2024:

• We will continue to maximise take-up of discretionary housing payments (DHP) to support vulnerable people and helping to prevent homelessness.
• We will review the way we monitor protected characteristics of our service users as part of our digital and customer access strategy.
• When services are reviewed, changed, or developed, we will carry out equality impact assessments to ensure the full impact of changes is understood before final decisions are made. We will continue to enhance our equality impact assessment questionnaires to ensure more information is captured to explain our decisions.
• We will ensure new projects, services and strategies, implemented because of our local plan and through community infrastructure levy projects, will be subject to equality impact assessments.
• We will continue to work to ensure all elected members have completed training in equalities, safeguarding and child sexual exploitation.
• We will continue to embed equalities and our corporate value of having respect for everyone.  
• We will deliver a new and more accessible website.
• We will continue to ensure equality and accessibility are key outcomes from our digitisation programme in ensuring the delivery of consistent customer journeys and easy to use online services.
• Customer testing will be at the heart of our digital and customer access strategy which is due to launch in 2024.
• We will support more accessible technologies and initiatives that provide a more welcoming environment to customers visiting us, including Sign Live.
• We will continue to support the Lichfield District Youth Council who meet regularly.
• Further actions will be identified during 2024 as part of the council’s work to create an equalities action plan which will be launched in 2024. Progress against the action plan will be reported regularly to the council’s leadership team. The equalities action plan and annual updates will also be presented to the council’s Cabinet.