Islington as a strategic leader

The fight to tackle inequality, racism and injustice is one which we must be shared: everyone needs to play their part. Tackling these challenges requires bold ambition and a relentless drive across the council, the wider Fairer Together Partnership, and the community. Through our example, our dialogue and our outreach we have to engage the entire spectrum of our community in order to achieve a truly co-produced vision for the future with a genuine sense of shared ownership.

We must use our platform as a community leader both to listen and to influence. We must put the community’s voice at the heart of our plans, recognising their issues and priorities to inform our goals before promoting those goals amongst our key partner institutions in the borough. Connecting our communities, the council and our institutions will allow us to challenge inequality together in a meaningful and effective way. Our Challenging Inequality Coalition is a collaborative project between diverse local groups that provides a space for equal partnership between the council and the communities we serve. Other initiatives, such as our Time to Change pledge to tackle mental health stigma and discrimination or our Somali community action plan, offer further opportunity to work closely alongside our voluntary and community sector partners to tackle inequality in a holistic and strengths-based way.

Inside the council, our political leaders and senior officers will be champions of equality and will be held accountable for delivering on our shared vision. During our conversations with staff, there was a feeling of skepticism, and rightly so, as these issues have been prevalent for some time without any meaningful action to address them. We are determined to be transparent in our approach and rigorous in our evidence based monitoring of equalities goals. In this way we can demonstrate our commitment to challenging inequality and set an example to others both inside and outside of the borough.

To lead the way in challenging inequality we have identified eight principles which will guide our approach: Being ambitious, Leading from the front, Knowing our communities, Working together, Building a diverse team, Planning for change, Encouraging the dialogue, and Following through.

As a strategic leader some of our key actions are:

• We will support our most senior leaders so that they feel equipped to lead the way as champions for challenging inequality, racism and injustice both as a council and through the Fairer Together Borough Partnership.
• We will ensure diverse community groups have the opportunity to input, shape and challenge our programme through our Challenging Inequality Coalition.
• We will review our use of language throughout the council to ensure that we are being inclusive in all our communication, including the use of the term ‘BAME’.
• We will challenge prejudice and celebrate diversity through powerful communications campaigns raising awareness of issues. For instance, by promoting the value of disabled workers and tackling stigma related to LGBTQ+ communities.
• We will continue to celebrate our diverse community through a programme of Challenging Inequality events including Black History Month, Disability History Month, LGBT History Month, Holocaust Memorial Day and many others. We will build on our events calendar, ensuring it is bigger and better and
  makes a real impact for staff and residents.
• We will embed a culture of considering equalities at a formative stage within service planning, design or policy/ procedure change across the organisation through reviewing, refreshing and guiding implementation of Equalities Impact Assessments.

Key targets include:

• By summer 2021, we will create a partnership action plan setting out areas that require collaboration with other partners to tackle inequality, racism and
  injustice.
• The Challenging Inequality Coalition will meet every six to eight weeks in 2021 to inform the action that is taken and make sure it is rooted in and addresses the lived experienced of our communities. We will also work alongside coalition members and community leaders among the Black Leaders
  Alliance – BLACK – to engage, research and consult with Islington’s Black community.
• An Inclusive Language Guide will be in place to inform council communications by summer 2021.
• We will have a rolling programme of events throughout 2021 to continue the dialogue.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• Ensure challenging inequality is a priority across the partnership and everyone plays their part.
• Increased engagement and stronger relationships with our staff and community.
• Appropriate use of language throughout the council, within contracts and the community to ensure that Islington is a place where everyone feels welcome and that the lived realities of specific groups are reflected in our data and communications.
• Increased awareness of equalities issues amongst staff and residents to establish a workplace and community culture where people feel diversity is genuinely valued.