The Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) applies to Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) and other public bodies who carry out public functions. It supports good decision-making by ensuring public bodies consider how different people will be affected by their activities, helping them to deliver policies and services which are efficient and effective; accessible to all; and which meet different people’s needs.

The PSED requires the ICB to have due regard (consideration) to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations for people with a protected characteristic when developing its policies, services or when carrying out day to day functions and activities.

The protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act’s PSED are: Age,  Disability, Gender Reassignment, Marriage and Civil Partnership (but only in respect of eliminating unlawful discrimination), Pregnancy and Maternity, Race – this includes ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality, Religion or Belief – this includes lack of belief, Sex and Sexual orientation.

Specific Duties

The PSED is supported by specific duties, which require public bodies to publish relevant, proportionate information demonstrating their compliance with the PSED; and to set themselves specific, measurable equality objectives. Publishing relevant equality information will make public bodies transparent about their decision-making processes, and accountable to their service users. It will give the public the information they need to hold public bodies to account for their performance on equality.

The specific duties require public bodies to:

• publish information to show their compliance with the Equality Duty, at least annually; and
• set and publish equality objectives, at least every four years.

The information published must include:

• information relating to employees who share protected characteristics (for public bodies with 150 or more employees); and
• information relating to people who are affected by the ICB policies and practices who share protected characteristics (for example, service users).

The PSED Report provides information on the ICB’s annual activity in relation to Equality Diversity and Inclusion. The ICB developed the 2022-2025 equality objectives based on the NHS Equality Delivery System Framework.

The 2022 – 2023 PSED Annual Report is currently in draft, subject to approval. Once approved the final report will then be published on the ICB’s dedicated equality webpage in April 2023.

All other Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) information and publications can be accessed from the ICB’s (EDI) Main Page or by clicking here The ICB EDI Action Plan for 2023/2024 will be updated here shortly.

This report is produced to meet legal publishing requirements and also to help to identify key areas for consideration and discussion for the ICBs Staff Network and Engagement Groups, Ambassadors and Champions, Decision Making Bodies and Committees and Trade Unions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a renewed focus, creating a great deal of positive action across the NHS to support staff. It recognised that our leaders need to continue to ensure that all staff are at the centre stage of all decision-making and that deep-rooted problems with inequality and discrimination in our workplaces are addressed.

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care System (ICS)

At a system level the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB will actively lead, support and contribute to the significant progress towards delivering workforce equality with their NHS partners to make the local area a better place to work including a movement towards an ‘one workforce’ approach as set out in the ICS Design Framework – where the greatest impact can be had by affecting change across the whole local workforce.

Integrated Care Systems can widen participation in health and care for local communities, including in areas of greater deprivation, for excluded groups and for people not in education, employment, or training. They can also make the most of the skills and talent across the whole local area, by creating employment, volunteering, and apprenticeship opportunities. This can not only help develop a broader talent pipeline, but also have a positive direct impact on communities’, families’, and individuals’ lives.           

For more information, visit our publications.

Workforce Diversity Profile Report 2022

In 2018, it became mandatory for all public sector employers with more than 250 employees to measure and publish their gender pay gap information. Since then, employers have had a responsibility to publish data annually.

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB agree and welcome the opportunity to publish this information.

Equal pay means that men and women in the same employment who are performing equal work must receive equal pay, as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

The gender pay gap is a measure that shows the difference in average earnings between men and women across an organisation or the labour market.

There are six steps to gender pay gap reporting

• Step one: Planning the report
• Step two: Use ESR reports to produce the figures
• Step three: Enter the data into the government website
• Step four: Analyse the reasons behind the figures
• Step five: Write a narrative
• Step six: Create an action plan to the narrative

This year the ICB will be looking at introducing the Ethnicity/Disability Pay Gap data, more information will follow.

For more information on the six steps and the gender pay gap, please click this link; Addressing the Pay Gap which will take you to a guidance document produced by NHS Employers.

As both local leaders in commissioning health care services and as employers, the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB provides a statement, reviewed annually in respect of the ICBs commitment to, and efforts in, preventing slavery and human trafficking practices in the supply chain and employment practices. NHS England have also produced a video (watch below) to explain Modern Slavery and its relevance and impact on healthcare.

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICS Modern Day Slavery Statement 2023

https://youtu.be/cRskjqpgSNs

The Accessible Information Standard is reflected in the ICB’s Accessibility and Communication Statement and is reviewed annually. Click on the links below for further information from NHS England:

• NHS Accessible Information Standard
• NHS Accessible Information Standard – Easy Read

NHS England have also worked with the charity Sense to develop an animated video which provides a step-by-step overview of the Standard. The video (shown below) includes subtitles and BSL interpretation.

https://youtu.be/ZJngMo37WvA

The Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) is a set of ten specific measures (Metrics) that will enable NHS organisations to compare the experiences of Disabled and non-disabled staff. NHS organisations will use the Metrics data and local data to develop a local action plan and enable them to demonstrate progress. For more information click the link NHS Workforce Disability Equality Standard.

Previous Chief Executive of NHS England and Co-Chair of the Equality and Diversity Council Sir Simon Stevens said:

“We’re committed to tackling inequality in the workplace wherever we find it. The new Workforce Disability Equality Standard will help the NHS fully realise the huge potential of all of our staff, and ensure their individual experiences contribute to improving care for patients.”