Being equal means making sure that life is fair for everyone. The Equality Act (external link) is a law to make sure everyone has the same access to opportunities. All public bodies must think about the impact their decisions have on people from different groups, and ensure that they are treated fairly and equally. These groups are people with ‘protected characteristics’ as set out in the Equality Duty. 

To ensure we are working towards a fairer County Borough, and considering our duties to make sure everyone is treated equally we have identified 12 equality outcomes that we want to work towards over the next five years. These are embedded within our Council Plan outcomes. 

You can find out more about how we decided on our equality outcomes on the ‘How we developed our plan’ page.

There is more information available on our duty, the Strategic Equality Plan element of our Council Plan, our Equality Impact Assessments and how we developed our equality outcomes on our Equality, Human Rights and Community Cohesion page.

The equality outcomes that we have identified are:

• The council is an ‘employer of choice’ able to recruit and retain a diverse and sustainable workforce, with a modern approach to work and a framework of employee rewards and benefits.   
• Any gender based pay gap identified will be reviewed and better understood. Appropriate work will commence to address this gap and other pay gaps where relevant.
• Our customers are able to contact us easily, through digital systems which are built around their needs. Our services are inclusive and we ensure that we support those customers who would like to use our digital services, as well as continuing to offer more traditional ways of contacting us, for those who need it.
• Welsh language and culture is thriving within our workforce and our communities and is actively promoted and supported.  
• Wrexham is a place where everyone knows they can get involved to influence the planning and delivery of services.  People are engaged, and consulted with on decisions which affect them, and where we can, we work to design and deliver services, and make things happen together.
• People are safeguarded from exploitation, violence and all forms of abuse, through working in partnership to increase awareness of the victims of exploitation and the available reporting pathways.
• Our communities are welcoming, and we promote and celebrate our communities’ diversity and cultures and ensure appropriate access to all services for everyone. 
• People seeking sanctuary from war or humanitarian crisis are supported to build a sustainable future in the County Borough.
• All learners are supported to improve their education outcomes, and inequalities in outcomes between different groups of learners will be reduced.
• Our learners have a positive learning experience through access to an environment that is accessible and fit for purpose and allows a choice of Welsh and English medium education.
• Children and adults are supported to have good mental health and well-being, by public services partnerships and communities working together. There is a focus on mental health support provided through prevention and early help mental health services to reduce demand for services later on. 
• We make certain our social care services meet the needs of those who use them by making sure the voice of children, adults, families and carers is heard and listened to. 

To ensure that these continue to be the right areas of focus we will use relevant equality information to review our outcomes and also inform decision making across the council.

You can find more information on the equality data we collect on our Equality, Human Rights and Community Cohesion page which includes workforce equality monitoring information along with information on any potential identified pay differences. Alongside this, the ‘This is Wrexham’ page, provides some of the key data that we use to inform our decision making in terms of Wrexham County Borough population and protected characteristics.