Welcome to Northamptonshire County Council’s second race equality scheme. A lot has happened since our first scheme was published – we have changed administration, refined some of our priorities to reflect local need, and have put systems in place to make sure that we are challenging what we are doing and why, and we are now rated as a ‘fair’ performing county council by the Audit Commission inspectors.
This is a working document, which enable service areas to continuously up-date their individual action plans and progress achieved.
We believe that the improvements that we are now seeing is because we set ourselves ambitious targets for improving services to all our communities, and because we are committed to becoming an excellent council by 2006.
As well as delivering on the specific and general requirements of the race equality scheme, we are also committed to achieving level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government and have recently published our Disability Equality Scheme and Action Plan.
Our race equality scheme is an important document because it represents a strong desire and commitment to action. It plays an important part in improving the quality of life of all the people who live and work in Northamptonshire, and sends an important message to those that visit our county and our partners.
Therefore we believe that the benefits of delivering on our race equality scheme will help us to improve services, promote excellent community relations and deliver on our goals for the county.