Equality and diversity are important to us and we are fully committed to delivering our services and employing staff in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.  In doing this, we will have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act.
• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share protected characteristics with those who do not.
• Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

In doing this, due regard for advancing equality means:

• Removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people with protected characteristics.
• Taking steps to meet the needs of people from protected groups where these are different from the needs of other people.
• Encouraging people from a protected group to partake in public life or in other activities where participation is low.

In line with the responsibilities placed on the Service by the Equality Act, we have established a number of equality objectives:

1. Continue to self-assess against the Fire and Rescue Service Equality Framework and report annually on progress to the Corporate Management Board.  This will demonstrate that the Service considers the needs of different groups of people when developing services and employing staff.
2. By 2020, achieve a measurable increase in disclosures in relation to internal monitoring by disability; sexual orientation and religion/belief.  The target is to increase these to 35%; 40% and 40% respectively.  This monitoring will enable NYFRS to support staff needs and help to recruit and retain staff from a wide talent pool.
3. To work towards achieving targets for staff training in relation to Equality/Fairness; Safeguarding and WRAP (Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent).  The target is to increase these to 90% completion for all staff in regard to both Equality/Fairness and Safeguarding and 90% for operational managers in regard to WRAP (prevention against terrorism training) by 2019.  This will demonstrate the Service’s commitment to staff training in the area of equalities and community safety and enable staff to support each other and stakeholders in a positive and fair environment.

Our own corporate values support equality and diversity.

Our policies and procedures also reflect our commitment to equality and diversity.

To ensure that we deliver against the Equality Act and our corporate values, the Equality and Safeguarding Officer provides updates to senior management.  They consider evidence of engagement with people, staff, service users and others to evaluate the effect of what we do on the whole community.

Gender Pay Gap Reports

You can find our gender pay gap reports on the Financial and Transparency information page.

Workforce Profile

We also publish annually, information that demonstrates our compliance with the general equality duty, in our equality profile.  You can view our workforce profiles by clicking on the links below: