EQUALITY ACT 2010 AND ITS DUTIES: HOW DO YOU USE YOURS?

At Nottingham Conference Centre for "The Equality Act 2010 and its Duties: How do you use yours?" a conference for Voluntary and Community Sector organisations in the East Midlands, offered by the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP).


Rahat Ahmed comes along today, since part of our arrangement for her summer internship with Leicester council of Faiths is that I'd help her get as rounded a picture of our work as possible - and give her the chance to join in our networking opportunities. Rosemarie Fitton is also here, since she was persuaded to act as a scribe at one fo the workshops when she was shadowing me at an REDP Core Partners meeting during he short placement with the Council of Faiths.


Here's a list of the organisation represented at the conference. Most of these are live links to their website (in the East Midlands, if one is available). A small number don't appear to have any online presence, local, regional or national.

• Action Housing & Support
• Age UK
• Akwaaba Ayeh
• Amaani Tallawah
• Aphasia Leicester Group
• Barnardos
• Bassetlaw Mind
• Building Community Bridges
• Campaign for Tackling Acquired Deafness
• Carers Action
• Central Notts Mind
• Community Advice and Law Service
• Consultancy Works
• Corby Community Partnership
• Crown Prosecution Service East Midlands
• Derby ABEC (Asian Black Ethnic Community) Network
• Derby and Derbyshire Race and Equality Commission
• Derbyshire Coalition for Independent Living
• Derbyshire Friend LGBT Support Service
• Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group
• Derbyshire Learning & Development Consortium
• Derbyshire Rainbow Fringe Festival
• Develop a Dream
• Disability Direct
• Disabled People's Advocacy
• Enable Housing Association
• Genesis Links
• Glossop Community Transport
• Heterarchy
• High Peak Access
• Home Instead Senior Care
• Hostels Liaison Group
• Leicester Aids Support Service
• Leicester Deaf Action Group
• Mears Home Improvement
• Midlands Community Association
• NCC LGBT Staff Network Group
• New Basford Community Centre
• Northampton Volunteering Centre
• Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council
• Nottingham Inter-Faith Council
• Nottingham Mencap
• Nottingham Regional Society for Adults and Children with Autism
• One East Midlands
• Rainbows Children's Hospice
• Remploy
• Repton
• Roads to Recovery
• Scope
• Sight ED
• Signing Network
• Social Housing Connection
• South Lincolnshire Mind
• Speak up 4 urself Children's Advocacy
• Step Ahead Alcohol Service
• Trans Resource Empowerment
• Urban Angel
• West Area Project

We have a large room that we use for exhibitions and promotional materials for organisations which are members of REDP's Core Reference Group. It's a varied and interesting display, which shows the diversity of our partnership in a more concrete form than I've ever seen it before.


REDP's new set of leaflets is on show; they attract a lot of interest and several compliments. The idea of making one leaflet for each protected characteristic came as a last-minute proposal after some of the team saw the leaflet i'd done for the Council of Faiths. The Council of Faiths leaflet, though, has been left in the office today. Oh, the irony! I think I might have moved the box the other day, when I took out some sample copies.


In the morning, we have three speakers:

Katrina Lidbetter, Deputy Head of Strategy, Government Equalities Office: The Government's view: The New Direction for Equality and Diversity" 

Amanda Arris, Chief Executive, Equality and Diversity Forum: "The Equality Act 2010 in detail and the implications for NGOs"

Andrew Hogan, Barrister, Ropewalk Chambers: "What can be done when the Equality Act 2010 has been breached"

In the afternoon, we have four 50-minute workshops, each of which is delivered twice:

Crown Prosecution Service East Midlands

Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership

Strategic Health Authority

Unity Law

Grace Moronfolu (Equality and Diversity manager, East Midlands) &  Adele Clarke (Area business Manager, East Midlands) who led the workshops for the CPS

I'm chairing the Crown Prosecution Service workshops (Rosemarie Fitton is official note taker).


The four Core Partners of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership are all heavily and actively involved today: Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre, Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living and The Race Equality Centre. Members of staff from REDP and LCIL do a great job (Carolyn, Kelly, Laura, Liz, Sophie and her ever-lovely hair) as do our volunteers today (Natalie and Sunny).


Follow Nottingham Conference Centre on Facebook and Twitter (@TheNCC).

REDP: stand by for action!

At Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) this morning, where REDP's Core Partners are meeting, in preparation for our conference at Nottingham Conference Centre tomorrow.

The conference is on the theme, "The Equality Act 2010 and its Duties". We've had a rush of registrations at the last minute (as we were sure we would) and have good strong numbers).

I get first sight of the new leaflets that I helped produce at the end of last week - and mighty fine things they are too. Everyone seems pleased with them, I'm glad to say. There's one for just about each of the Protected Characteristics: Age; Disability; Gender Reassignment; Race; Religion or Belief; Sex; Sexual Orientation (as well as a generic one we've called "Brief Definitions"). In the end, we didn't have time to do leaflets on the remaining two protected Characteristics: Marriage and Civil Partnership; and Maternity and Pregnancy. We've got a new leaflet for Leicester Council of Faiths entitled "Religion or Belief: A Protected Characteristic in the Equality Act 2010" (Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living and the Leicester Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre also have new promotional material linking them to their Protected Characteristics in the Equality Act).