Statement on outcome of Employment Tribunal October 2023

Discrimination in any form is unacceptable and goes against the values that we uphold as a council. 

We are committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for all our employees regardless of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. 

We are very sorry for the shortcomings in the experience of our employee and for the distress this has caused.  

Prior to the outcome of the tribunal we had taken actions to free our workplace from discrimination. These include ensuring our managers are knowledgeable and understating of the support they need to give our employees, providing all staff with mandatory diversity and inclusion training, trans and gender diversity sessions as well as developing our Trans Equality Policy and supporting guidance for staff who start their transitioning journey whilst working for the council. 
 
We have improved our processes and systems to better support officers from the trans and non-binary community and also reviewed our dignity at work policy to make it easier for employees to report any incidents of discrimination.

There is always more that we can do to ensure we are building equity into our culture and working practices. We are committed to doing the hard work necessary to create a workplace that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone including our trans and non-binary colleagues.