The partnership is committed to promoting equality of opportunity and eliminating unlawful discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, faith, gender, race and sexual orientation. This is fundamental to our vision of an inclusive and vibrant borough.
The council’s Deputy Leader, who is an appointed member of the Sutton Partnership Board, chairs the Sutton Equality & Diversity Forum. The forum is an umbrella body bringing together councillors and representatives from a number of bodies including the Sutton Minority Ethnic Forum, the Faith & Belief Forum, the Physical and Sensory Disabilities Partnership Board, the Carers’ Forum, Sutton Women’s Centre and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Forum. The forum has a pivotal role in taking forward the equalities and diversity agenda in the borough and its work is closely related to the activities of the Sutton Partnership.
The Equality and Diversity Forum supported the development of the Sutton Equality Charter which was agreed by the Sutton Partnership Board in April 2009. The charter commits partnership members to six equality pledges.
There is a strong emphasis in the partnership’s Local Area Agreement on tackling inequalities – be it income related as in the case of closing the gap in terms of the educational attainment of pupils eligible for free school meals, or to do with disability as in the case of adults with learning disabilities in settled accommodation, or targeted at specific groups as in the case of increasing the number of young offenders in suitable education, employment or training.
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