Islington as a service provider and commissioner

Building opportunities for resilience and share prosperity, in its widest sense, through Community Wealth Building is key to tackling inequality and improving life chances. There now exists an enormous wealth gap in Islington. Through the development of a community-led model for economic development we hope to narrow that gap. This is based on a commitment to creating an inclusive and socially just local economy, with local people at its heart – no matter what their background.

There are Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority groups under-represented in employment and amongst entrepreneurs, as well as people with disabilities, older people and women. We recognise the need for tailored packages of support to provide residents with the opportunity to achieve their potential. We want to make the most of our assets for the benefit of community groups, opening up spaces and resources for all residents to thrive.

We intend to work with key local partners to achieve this. These ‘anchor institutions’ are typically large, locally rooted organisations that are here to stay. They employ a lot people, wield significant purchasing power, and own or manage buildings and land. The way they do each of these things makes a significant difference to local communities. We will share common goals on tackling inequalities and work collaboratively to deliver enhanced positive impacts for local people and places.

By putting equality, inclusivity and social justice at the centre of our economic plans we can ensure that Islington’s disadvantaged communities benefit from future economic growth. 

Some key things include:

• We want to enable and support more people from under-represented groups to start up businesses, survive and thrive. We will develop a business support programme for underrepresented entrepreneurs and minority owners via a dedicated network and applicable training resources.
• We know that some groups face additional barriers to finding work. Through the Islington Working partnership, we will provide tailored employment support for disadvantaged groups including those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those with disabilities, parents and young people.
• We will use our emerging network of Affordable Workspaces to maximise delivery of social value. We will ensure that contracts with those who use our spaces include targets to deliver benefits for local residents e.g. providing jobs, training or support for new entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups.
• We want to ensure that those we commission to deliver goods and services are promoting diversity and equality throughout the supply chain. We will introduce and embed robust guidance and criteria on the need to actively promote equalities which will be part of our assessment in awarding contracts.
• Our buildings and community assets should be used to benefit our communities and enable them to come together and thrive. As part of a rolling asset review, we will undertake an audit on the use of and access to community assets for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups, identify barriers to access and create opportunities to maximise community benefit.

Key targets include:

• Our entrepreneur network and training resources will be in place by summer 2021.
• Use data to evidence numbers supported into employment, to report on and identify any additional groups impacted by COVID-19, and adjust provision to address unmet need.
• Two more affordable workspaces will be up and running by autumn 2021.
• The social value guidance for our new procurement strategy will be agreed by summer 2021, with clear targets to monitor performance.
• A review of council assets will be completed by the end of 2021.

To achieve outcomes such as

• 1,000 people will find new work through our Islington Working partnership which will include target percentages for disadvantaged groups, such as 50% for those from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
• Increase in the number of social impact start-ups led by entrepreneurs from under-represented groups in our affordable workspaces.
• Increase in the number of minority-owned businesses getting support from the council.
• Clear demonstration that those we commission or work with in our supply chain share our commitment to ensuring our services deliver social value.
• Increased usage of our council assets by our diverse community groups.

We will drive the green revolution in Islington, creating a cleaner, greener borough focused on the climate emergency and becoming a net-zero carbon council by 2030, including People Friendly Streets.

We know that a clean borough has always been a priority for residents and that the climate emergency is also a top priority. We owe it to ourselves and our future generations to act decisively now to tackle the threat posed by climate change. Through our Net Zero Carbon programme we have set ourselves an ambitious target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2030. This will require considerable effort on behalf of the council, partners, businesses and residents.

We know residents want to breathe cleaner air and reduce CO2 emissions. Our People Friendly Streets programme aims to reduce traffic at key strategic locations with the aim of encouraging more sustainable and healthier methods of travel such as walking and cycling.

We understand that feeling safe, secure and welcome in our borough is key to our residents’ quality of life. Community safety in Islington is about creating an environment where everyone is able to walk around freely, to be themselves and feel a sense of belonging. Through our Hate Crime Strategy and community partner groups, we will work collectively to improve safety in the borough, ensuring that there is an effective response to those suffering or perpetrating hate and that vulnerable victims feel supported.

A fairer Islington means that everyone can enjoy a cleaner, greener, healthier future, tackling inequalities through these actions will help us reach this ambition.

Here are a few key examples:

• We will work with our diverse community when designing our People Friendly Streets programme to ensure it considers the needs of all disadvantaged groups whilst maintaining our commitment to net zero by 2030.
• We want to support those with the greatest health inequalities to access leisure activity. To do this we will analyse leisure centre usage and develop appropriate targeted interventions, communications and outreach.
• We want to provide affordable energy to those in need through our SHINE energy programme. We will ensure that our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities are accessing their fair share of the programme using targeted communications.
• We know that the health benefits of our parks and open spaces are not equally accessed by all of our residents. We will consult with residents and analyse park usage data to understand and break down barriers to access.
• We will build and develop the department’s pre-existing mechanisms for tackling equality issues. This includes reviewing and formalising the role of the Equalities and Fairness Board, increasing the number of Fairness Champions and our Learning and Development programme to support the progression of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff.
• We want to ensure that Islington is a place where everyone feels welcome and safe to be themselves. To do this we will take a zero tolerance approach to those who commit hate crime, using all the tools at our disposal, including tenancy management, publicising those charged with hate offences and delivering on our Hate Crime Strategy plan.
• We know that there is significant under reporting of hate crime. Through our community champions and events programme, we will raise awareness and understanding of hate incidents and processes to ensure our residents have the confidence in our services to report and are clear about the support available.

Key targets include:

• We will engage with the community on People Friendly Streets by surveying on all schemes introduced, increasing the number of schemes which include physical interventions to improve access and monitoring the demographic make-up of those responding to surveys to ensure we reach a representative cross section of the population.
• To develop targeted programmes and initiatives to address disproportionality of users accessing our leisure offer with specific targets to increase access for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic users.
• Set specific targets on the number of referrals made by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic residents to our SHINE energy programme and complete targeted
  communications to increase awareness among these communities by summer 2021.
• Our Parks for Health project will include a focused plan for communities disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, such as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
  residents.
• Increased representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and frontline staff on our Learning and Development programme and Equality and Fairness Board. We will ensure a 25% uptake from frontline staff.
• Set up community hate crime reporting champions and deliver a successful programme of events during Hate Crime Awareness Week.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• Ensure that People Friendly Streets don’t adversely aŽect those with protected characteristics and enable them to access active travel.
• Increased access to leisure estate and park activity for those with the greatest health inequalities monitored through clear baselining and targets completed in 2021.
• 2,500 unique customer referrals through SHINE services in 2021, with uptake from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic residents proportionate to Islington’s population (30%).
• Strengthen the directorate’s existing approach to managing equalities issues, particularly ensuring improved engagement from frontline and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff.
• An increase in the number of positive outcomes recorded by the police for hate crime offences.
• Increased reporting levels across the range of hate crime categories.

A fairer Islington means that everyone has a decent, secure and genuinely affordable place to call home. Housing inequalities can have a profound effect on the ability of a person, or a community, to enjoy a good quality of life. We recognise that our staff on the front line are best placed to understand the varying needs of residents. Our Housing Service Ambassadors programme will introduce an opportunity for those staff to take a deep dive into equality and diversity issues and report recommendations to our Senior Management Team.

While Islington has seen a consistent reduction in homelessness acceptances over the last five years, we know we don’t always reach those who may be most at risk or experience unequal access. Direct, targeted engagement with communities, such as those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, is key to  identifying and addressing challenges. Confidence in cultural awareness and competence will be critical to get the most out of our resident engagement programmes and build strong, meaningful relationships.

Safe, quality housing sits as the bedrock for so much of our lives. Through improved training, outreach and engagement we will ensure that we can understand and tackle the barriers that exist for local people.

For example:

• We want to empower staff to use their expertise and relationships with communities to tackle disproportionality across housing. Through our Housing Ambassadors programme, staff will have the opportunity to develop a department equalities action plan and present service improvement projects that aim to tackle inequality.
• We want to increase awareness of implicit bias amongst staff and confidence in cultural competence when engaging with communities. To do this we have committed to departmentwide unconscious bias training.
• We want to reduce the risk of homelessness among our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. To do this we will hold homelessness prevention surgeries at a wide range of faith and community locations.
• We want to support rough sleepers and the vulnerable street population. We will work intensively with entrenched rough sleeps to address their complex needs and remove them from the street, including engagement and support for street-based drug users to access treatment.
• We want to ensure that those with protected characteristics are not disadvantaged when applying for lettings. We will carry out a review of lettings data to consider impacts on these groups.
• We know that the gender balance within our service workforce does not always reflect the diversity we see among our residents. We will encourage female applicants for in-house repairs apprenticeships through outreach work with schools and residents, including DIY and trade-specific taster sessions.

Key targets include:

• By March 2021, 24 staff will have completed the Housing Ambassadors programme. We will develop the department equalities action plan in the coming months with proposed projects to implement the plan presented to the Housing Management Team in 2021.
• One hundred percent of department staff will have completed unconscious bias training by summer 2021.
• Restart our homelessness surgeries online in 2021 since engagement has been suspended by COVID-19.
• We will complete an annual review of lettings data to ensure our lettings allocation scheme does not negatively impact on a particular protected group.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• Equality and Diversity Project recommendations will have been adopted and incorporated across Housing services.
• Increased awareness of implicit bias that exists amongst staff and increased confidence in the cultural awareness and competence of all staff.
• Improved insight and engagement with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities to identify emerging housing issues, mitigate impacts and reduce the risks of homelessness.
• A decrease in the number of rough sleepers seen in regular street counts.
• An in-house workforce that better reflects the diverse profile of our residents.

Adult social care will most likely touch all of us at some point in our lives, whether for ourselves or loved ones, and it is vital that everyone has access to the services they need at the right time in the right place. Understanding and reflecting the experiences of our diverse population is key to responding to their needs. Therefore, we want to ensure that we engage in a consistent, inclusive way that involves all of our resident groups. Our resident forums will ensure that all protected characteristics are properly represented.

Meanwhile we will work with stakeholders to ensure information reaches groups in different languages, easy read formats, online and offline. We know it is essential that the in-house and external providers of our wide range of services adopt our values in all aspects of delivery, therefore we will actively promote diversity and inclusion to key partners and ensure that equality goals are a feature of our commissioning specifications. All this work will require us to further strengthen our evidence base and monitoring arrangements.

Through our approach to co-production and the robust tracking and analysis of service data, we will ensure that all of our services reduce inequality and meet the needs of our community.

A series of actions will help us to reach this objective, for instance:

• We want to ensure that the information we put out is accessible to all residents. To do this we will ensure communications are available in residents’ preferred language, easily readable and digitally inclusive.
• We know that creating opportunities for meaningful, inclusive co-production and resident feedback is key to delivering the right services. We will ensure that resident forums are fully representative of our communities and improve feedback channels to ensure our strategies take into account diverse needs.
• We want to ensure that all communities are receiving equal access to adult social care services when they need them and that we have the data to understand inequalities. We will improve data collection and analysis, including monitoring resident experience through the annual survey and end of service questionnaires.
• We know that our commissioned services and key partner agencies can contribute to advancing anti-discriminatory practice and promoting inclusion. We will put in place a Quality Assurance framework for senior managers to drive an accountable equality, diversity and inclusion culture in adult social care.
• We know that COVID-19 has affected some more than others. We will ensure that all of our COVID-19 recovery plans pay particular attention to identified vulnerable groups who have faced a disproportionate impact.

Key targets include:

• By the end of 2021 we will have engaged with stakeholders to develop, produce and agree information about services that is accessible and inclusive.
• Increased representation within existing forums and “You said, we did, we will do together” mechanism in place to support inclusive engagement by autumn 2021.
• By the end of 2021 the adult social care Quality Assurance framework will be in place. All new, amended or reviewed adult social care policies will deliver evident advancements in equality, diversity and inclusion matters as part of our framework by the end of 2021.
• All COVID-19 recovery plans will include specific reference to the effects on disadvantaged groups.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• Information is accessible in a variety of formats. Residents feel better informed about what is available and hold increased feelings of choice and control over their own life.
• Co-production activities are consistently inclusive regarding protected characteristics and socio-economic factors, reflecting, representing and involving our diverse population.
• An improved evidence base allowing us to better identify inequalities and inform planning and delivery across the department, to enable early intervention and prevention, and to address equality issues.
• Adult social care and commissioned services progressively become exemplar or rated as Outstanding in meeting diversity of need by the Care Quality Commission.

Providing all of Islington’s children with an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential is fundamental in our journey towards a fairer society. There are clear challenges, in this regard, due to the child poverty rates in the borough which place many of our children at a disadvantage. We have identified clear inequalities that adversely impact upon our children, young people and families and we are determined to tackle such issues. For instance, our data tells us that there is an educational attainment gap for Black Caribbean and White British disadvantaged groups in relation to their peers. This inequality persists into the post-16 world with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people and adults more likely to be Not Engaged in Education, Training and Employment (NEET).

We know that some disadvantaged families with children aged zero to five are not always aware of or accessing our Early Years services and we want to improve this reach. We understand that some of our children and young people who now face digital exclusion need our support to access high quality online education and resources. We are committed to addressing the disproportional numbers of Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed parentage children in the care system. We also want to improve the accessibility of mental health services for children and young people from backgrounds who are less likely to access these services.

In order to reduce inequality in the education and schools system, we have developed a Challenging Inequalities in Education plan which places a strong focus on increasing capacity to track and improve the progress of underachieving groups. This includes: using data to track and monitor progress of our schools in relation to educational outcomes by demographics; using targeted interventions to address inequalities; work on addressing disproportionality around exclusions; unconscious bias training for directorate and school staff and decolonising the curriculum to make it more inclusive and representative.

In relation to youth crime, we know that inequalities have existed for many years as highlighted in the Lammy Review. We carried out our own innovative research into this matter with the Youth Justice Board, City University and Haringey Council, exploring the reasons Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed Race young people are over-represented in the youth justice system. We have formulated an action plan which includes targets in relation to working with the Police to bridge gaps and improve relations with certain communities; the courts to address disproportionality in relation to sentencing and reducing school exclusions.

We have produced an equalities strategy in Children’s Services, which has been written and designed to align itself with this overarching plan. The Children’s Services strategy is focused around embedding anti-discriminatory practice and service delivery across all areas. This is to ensure that all protected characteristics, including those in relation to our children with disabilities and those from LGBTQ+ groups, are supported from an equalities perspective.

Here are a few key examples of the actions we have planned:

• We are aware that some minority groups and disadvantaged families with young children are not always aware of and accessing our integrated health and education offers. We will target groups to increase uptake of Early Years services.
• We want to ensure that all children and young people have access to high quality remote learning and online resources. To do this we will increase promotion and access to our Library Services, including our free WiFi and printing offer to reduce digital exclusion.
• We will deliver our multi-agency Somali community plan in order to ensure that the partnership can respond appropriately and accordingly to this group, who have reported that they feel marginalised and vulnerable in a number of areas including youth and criminal justice, education and employment. We sadly lost two Somali men through criminal exploitation in the summer and autumn of 2020.
• Our evidence tells us there are a disproportionate number of Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed parentage children in the care system. We will implement a placement board to better understand why certain groups of children are more likely to enter the care system and to see what we can do to tackle this.
• We will continue our disproportionality action plan following the research with City University. This will include more of a focus on addressing the fact that disproportionate numbers of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young people are stopped and searched by Police. Through our engagement workshops and other initiatives with police officers and young people, we will work to tackle this issue and reduce mistrust of the Police overall.

Key targets include:

• We will collect and analyse usage data for our Library and Early Years services, including a breakdown by ethnicity, and work with services to identify and develop actions to target under-represented groups.
• Our placement board in relation to Children Looked After will be up and running by summer 2021.
• Continue our programme of engagement workshop sessions with senior police officers and young people throughout 2021.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• Increased take up of Library Services from children and families from lower socioeconomic groups evidenced by an increase in library membership and an increase in visitors to improve access to digital services.
• Through our Somali community action plan we aim to increase the numbers of Somali young people and families accessing our early help and preventative services and reduce the numbers within the community who become victims of Modern Slavery.
• A reduction in the overall numbers of children becoming looked after, particularly among Black Caribbean, Black African and Mixed parentage children.
• Reduced numbers of children and young people being stopped and searched by the Police from specific ethnic backgrounds and reduced numbers of young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups entering the youth justice system.

Over the past year, Public Health have been focusing on work to address inequalities in relation to the borough’s COVID-19 response. We will continue to work to better understand the disproportionate health effects we have seen amongst Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities through collating research, developing culturally competent prevention campaigns and ensuring our recovery plans pay particular attention to such groups.

The disproportionate impact of the pandemic has served to highlight health inequalities that have long been seen in our country by both the NHS and local authorities. For example, data shows that some Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups are at high risk of diabetes. We need to expand our understanding of who currently accesses our services and provide tailored, culturally competent help that increases engagement. Addressing the disproportionality we know exists in health is a priority. However, we don’t always know enough about the communities we serve so expanding the information we have is key to inform action elsewhere. We will continue to seek out and challenge other inequalities through improving the consistency of our own data collection as well as sharing our data knowledge throughout the organisation. We will actively promote representation of diverse communities in any planned engagement work and improve the breadth and accessibility of Public Health information. Alongside our data and engagement work, we will develop actions to ensure that our approach to commissioning services considers health inequalities for diverse communities.

Our commitments include the following actions:

• We want to better understand the disproportionate health efffects of COVID-19 on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. To do this we will implement local collection of ethnicity data at death registration, going above the national requirement.
• We will carry out workshops to improve the understanding of the need for high quality data on protected characteristics among council colleagues and partners working across the health and care system.
• We want to ensure our Diabetes Prevention Programme and other early intervention and prevention services are accessible to high risk Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. To do this we will work with providers to effectively and appropriately engage target groups.
• We want to ensure that our commissioned services actively promote diversity and equality across a range of areas, including: their workforce, service offer and in monitoring complaints, incident and deaths in service. We will complete an audit of commissioned services to identify how they monitor diversity and equality issues and co-develop plans to address areas of weakness.

Key targets include:

• Until March 2021 we will continue to refine our Public Health commitments to incorporate further areas of work outside our COVID-19 response.
• We will review the data needs of other departments to consider how Public Heath could add value through shared tools and workshops.
• Assess service usage data for our Diabetes Prevention Programme to set a baseline and target to monitor for increased percentage of people entering and completing the programme from different Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups.
• In 2021, we will complete our equality audit of commissioned services including regular engagement with providers.

To achieve outcomes such as:

• A greater understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on communities in the borough which are used to inform service planning and communications.
• Improvements in data quality and increased consistency in reporting against protected characteristics across the health and care system will allow us to better understand health inequalities and be better placed to address them.
• An increased percentage of people from different Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups engaging successfully with prevention and early intervention services, such as the Diabetes Prevention Programme.
• Service users and staff from all communities report improved experience of NHS, local government and integrated care systems and commissioned services.