Equality and diversity report

What we have achieved in 2024-25

Put EDI at the heart of the design and delivery of our services, policies, systems, procurement, commissioning and facilities, so that they are fully accessible and inclusive, removing any barriers faced by our residents.

Public Health services 

Within our commissioned drug and alcohol services, the growth of our visible Recovery Community being led by our Lived Experience Recovery Organisation - Recovery Connections, is proving to have an important impact to reduce stigma, and encourage the people who need support to engage with Drug and Alcohol Treatment through activities open to the whole community within the Recovery Hub at Leam Lane Library, and the Coffee Bike taken out on the street from the Gateshead Recovery Partnership base on Jackson Street.   

Gateshead Recovery Partnership have employed a Women's Development worker to develop the service offer for women and to collaborate with other organisations and services offering support for women. 

We commissioned an Integrated Sexual Health Service following completion of a health needs assessment and focus groups with key population groups.  The Serce contract is driven by its recommendations focussed on inclusion health groups (people who are socially excluded and may experience multiple overlapping risk factors for poor health) enabling access and support.   

Corporate Commissioning and Procurement

We have developed in partnership with the Digital Team a set of IT standards equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) for all new public facing systems. We have updated the Councils Corporate Social Responsibility Pledge to include EDI. We have updated our market engagement questionnaire to ask providers if they need any adjustments (in line with protected characteristics) in order for them to take part in market engagement, to increase inclusion and diversity of our providers. 

Current commissioning exercises for Supported Housing and SEND Information, Advice and Support Service contracts we have carried out extensive consultation with their service users as part of developing new service delivery models. 

Arts Development Programme 

The annual Arts Development programme is designed to ensure that activities reach and reflect Gateshead communities, often working with partners to develop new audiences. Targeted work includes project with older residents, LGBTQ+ activities, and reflecting and celebrating Gateshead's diversity through schools' projects and events. 

Libraries and Heritage services 

Our Reading for Wellbeing team runs a monthly 'Let's Talk Stories' session at 3 libraries in Gateshead - Blaydon, Leam Lane and Gateshead Central Library. The sessions use books, poems and historic articles from the 'Gateshead Post' as a starting point for conversation. Most participants have been referred to the groups by Community Link Workers who have identified people who are socially isolated or have low level mental health problems. There were 198 attendances at these sessions in 2024/25. Some sessions run outdoors, for example in Chopwell Woods and Saltwell Park, using stories and poetry as a conversation point alongside a walk to improve wellbeing. There were 108 attendances of reading for wellbeing sessions of this type in 2024/25. 

The Reading for Wellbeing team continues to work with older people on an outreach basis, to encourage engagement with reading activities for those who may be socially isolated. Through a programme of creative sessions in assisted living accommodation and at luncheon clubs the team have worked with 787 people.  

With funding from Natural England, Libraries ran the Welcoming Nature engagement project to bridge the gap between newly arrived communities and the natural world. The project helped asylum seekers connect with nature locally, improving their sense of belonging in Gateshead and their wellbeing. Local artist, Megan Randall, worked with attendees using natural materials gathered on walks, with sessions held in six different parks or woodlands, including Saltwell Park, Chopwell Woods, and Watergate Forest Park. We also held a session at Gateshead Central Library to show new arrivals the facilities there. We used stories as a way to boost wellbeing whilst in these outdoor spaces and a meal on each visit. Most sessions were held on Saturdays to ensure children and families could participate. The sessions were delivered in partnership with the Alive Church. 

The Children and Young People's team worked in partnership with Gem Arts to support a homework club each week at the Central Library. The club is for GCSE students from a migrant/refugee family. It offers a safe, supportive social space to study and work with experienced tutors and engage in creative activities. Gem Arts secured funding for transport to bring pupils to the Central Library directly from Kingsmeadow school, and to pay for an ESOL tutor to support their studies. Parents and carers are also invited along and the attendees are encouraged to use the library independently at other times also. 

Gateshead Archive continues to work with the African Lives in the North Project to highlight the contribution of residents of African & Caribbean descent. In 2024 the project piloted a new black history walk for Gateshead schools and newly researched histories of Gateshead's 19th century Caribbean residents were added to the project website. 

The Archive supported a Roma heritage project working with residents to record their memories and share them with others through a new heritage leaflet. Work began with Gateshead's Pakistani community on a project to record their history in coming to Gateshead with a leaflet also due to launch in June. Work has also begun with the Jewish community to identify material about the community's history within the Archive collections. For Holocaust Memorial Day the Library Service took part in the promotion of books and resources relating to the Holocaust and other genocides. 

A new LGBTQ+ heritage group is meeting at the Central Library and working with the Archive team to identify unknown histories from Archive collections. 

The Libraries Digital team gifted 150 SIM cards and 20 devices to those in need, taking referrals from Community Link Workers and the resettlement team, plus through ongoing partnerships. The team also supported Comfrey Project and 2Way Tenancy to become databanks also, to extend access to free data for residents who seek support from these groups. 

The digital team's community work provided targeted workshops to Cedars Academy, Unity, Hertfordshire House men's mental health group, Edberts House Women's Wellbeing Group, Youth Groups NE and youth groups which meet in the Edberts House community houses. 

Working Gateshead 

Over 1000 Gateshead residents took up the offer of ongoing, intensive employment support from Working Gateshead to help them prepare for, return to and progress in work in 2024/25. The reach of the service is extensive and targeted engagement is undertaken within a range of communities, council services and through social media channels. All support is tailored to the individual and based upon a firm understanding of need and employment goals. 

•  25% of our new customers presented as being non-White ethnicity. This includes 5% Black, Black British or African 
• 45% of our new customers were women 
• 20% of customers declared a health condition 
• Targeted engagement of young people led to 3% of new customers being care experienced and 5% aged 16 to 18 and NEET   

The UKSPF funded Youth Matters project provided support for 36 economically inactive care experienced young people to move closer to and into work. Sustaining engagement with these young people can be challenging but the project overachieved on engagement targets by providing specialist job coach support in a supportive, safe, multi-agency environment whilst building in routine, increasing confidence, motivation and time-keeping. Eight young people were helped to secure their first job and 22 began to actively search for work.  

83 refugees started work after receiving specialised employment support to identify transferable skills, boost work experience and gain an understanding of employer expectations in the UK. 

Support was provided for 44 residents experiencing multiple and complex issues that were impacting upon their ability and availability to look for and secure employment. Following holistic support, six of these engaged with the benefits system, 50% started looking for work after previously considering this was not an option, six engaged with non-mainstream health services, such as recovery support, and nine started work. 

A total of 420 residents were helped into work, achieving 475 job starts as further support was required for those falling out of work to secure alternative employment. 

Education, Schools and Inclusion 

Our School Admission and Fair Access teams play a vital role in supporting ethnic minority families, particularly those arriving through designated Home Office programmes. These teams provide tailored advice and guidance on school admissions and offer support during initial school meetings. In addition, referrals are made to the Ethnic Minority and Achievement Service (EMTAS), ensuring that newly arrived pupils receive up to four weeks of targeted in-school support to aid their transition and integration. 

The Fair Access team collaborates closely with schools to maintain a transparent and inclusive Fair Access process, ensuring that all children and young people in Gateshead are supported appropriately. The Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) team develops strategies to help children experiencing school-related anxiety, working with both families and schools to improve attendance and engagement. Similarly, the School Support team provides essential services for pupils unable to attend school due to medical needs, helping them to continue their education and achieve positive outcomes. 

Our EMTAS team works directly with pupils who have English as an additional language (EAL), supporting both their academic progress and social-emotional development. The team partners with school leadership and voluntary sector organisations to extend support beyond the classroom, promoting initiatives such as the Schools of Sanctuary accreditation. This recognises schools that actively support pupils from diverse ethnic backgrounds. EMTAS also advises on curriculum planning and instructional strategies to enhance learning for EAL pupils, including those from Traveller, Roma, and Gypsy communities. Schools with a high proportion of ethnic minority pupils (20% or more) benefit from a dedicated officer, and families are signposted to enrichment opportunities through third sector organisations. 

The Learning and Skills team ensures that post-16 learners from diverse backgrounds have equitable access to education. This includes the use of Individual Learning Plans (ILPs), which incorporate Gateshead's SEND Thresholds to identify and address specific learner needs. Curriculum planning is co-designed with learners to reflect both educational and personal development goals. Staff foster a safe and respectful learning environment, challenge inappropriate behaviour, and regularly gather learner feedback to inform practice. Ongoing professional development, including recent training on Trauma Informed Practice, supports staff in delivering inclusive education and has informed updates to behaviour policies. Learner participation is monitored and equitable success and progression rates for learners from different backgrounds, ensuring that all learners succeed. 

The SEND and Educational Psychology teams provide expert guidance to schools and settings, promoting inclusive teaching methods and curriculum design. Their work ensures that all learners, regardless of barriers, have access to high-quality education. These teams support the assess-plan-do-review cycle, helping schools set and achieve ambitious outcomes for pupils with SEND. Their services are accessible to all children and young people in Gateshead, including those not currently attending school, and they offer evidence-based interventions to support emotional wellbeing and prosocial behaviour development. 

The Schools and 0 to 5 Service delivers bespoke in-school support to ensure all pupils access a broad, inclusive, and well-sequenced curriculum. Specialist support is also provided to Early Years (EY) settings, including assistance for asylum seeker and refugee children aged 2 to 4 in securing early education. Early Years Area SENCos work with schools and private, voluntary, and independent (PVI) settings to promote inclusion and equal access for all young children. 

Finally, our Sports and Music Services offer a wide range of inclusive activities throughout the year. The Musician in Residence scheme brings professional live music experiences to children from socio economically diverse backgrounds. Conductive Music delivers technology-based workshops in our specialist provisions, and the Cantina Band includes pupils with a variety of additional needs and vulnerabilities, ensuring that all children have the opportunity to participate in enriching cultural experiences. 

Recognise our residents are individuals and provide services to meet their needs, in some cases this will mean doing more to support those who are disadvantaged by who they are or their experiences. 

Service Redesign  

We carried out a range of customer engagement activities to understand lived experiences across the social housing lettings journey. These included direct interviews, surveys, and targeted focus groups. A key part of this engagement focused on accessibility and inclusion. We partnered with Your Voice Counts, a charity supporting people with learning disabilities, to run a focus group reviewing the online social housing application form. Participants shared detailed feedback on how the language, structure, and interface created barriers for people with learning difficulties. Their insights directly informed proposed improvements, including simplifying the layout, avoiding jargon, and ensuring the process can be completed with minimal support. This work not only ensured the voices of people with learning disabilities were heard, but also strengthened the accessibility focus across all service redesign workstreams 

Social Housing Application Process 

This project focused on improving the accessibility and inclusivity of the social housing application process. Survey responses provided detailed feedback on each step of the process, from setting up a My Housing Account to completing the form and accessing support. In-depth follow-up interviews were also conducted to gain a greater understanding of potential barriers faced by vulnerable applicants, including those with low digital confidence, learning disabilities, or limited English. As a direct result, we are introducing a series of improvements including; simplified and clearer guidance throughout the application, improved signposting to support options, more accessible language and new formats for key information, tailored to different needs, e.g. Easy read versions. This project laid essential groundwork for future improvements in digital accessibility and support pathways, ensuring the application process is more inclusive for those who may struggle with traditional online forms. 

Housing IT Services 

During 2024/25 ICT Housing delivered a wide range of EDI initiatives to support customers in accessing housing services and to enable colleagues to continue to deliver excellent services. The team has also provided digital training to a range of support organisations such as Oasis and Citizen's Advice, to upskill them to be able to support our tenants when working with them, accessing and using their housing account successfully. We also worked 121 with some digitally excluded customers, teaching them how to set up a 'My Housing Account' and showing them how to use it, for example, how to report a repair online. 

Local Authority Housing Fund  

The Council received funding through the Local Authority Housing Fund to acquire homes for families with housing needs who have arrived in the UK via the Afghan and Ukrainian resettlement and relocation schemes. In 2024/25 the Council purchased four properties through this scheme, building on the 17 homes delivered in 2023/24. These homes, and the support provided by the Council, will help to welcome and integrate families into Gateshead.

Communicate in accessible ways and provide information, advice and guidance about our services in appropriate formats, in order to fully meet the needs of all our residents

Tenants Multi-Storey Safety group  

The Multi-Storey Safety Group comprises of tenants and leaseholders who share their personal experiences of living in this often-complex housing type. The group works with officers to help ensure their homes are safe to live in, and that we provide relevant and up to date information to residents in accordance with the Building Safety Act 2022. The group influenced a range of building safety activities including; developing a tenant inspector programme for multi-storey blocks, engagement with the scrutiny review of communications and undertook a fire risk assessment in St Cuthbert's Court to understand what's involved. Evacuation assistance communication was also developed to ensure people who have a long or short-term disability that would impact on their ability to evacuate the building, will receive the help they need.  

Tenant and Customer Equality Diversity and Inclusion Group  

The EDI group ensures our services and customer communications are accessible. They also create awareness raising projects on matters such as hate crime and mental health. The group began a programme of work around how we use customer profile data in practice across our housing services. Colleagues from the Anti-Social Behaviour, Repairs, Leasehold and Investment teams shared examples of how they utilise the data we hold to tailor services for our customers. Customers will use this information to test how this works in practice and identify any barriers that may exist to help us improve service delivery.  

SEND Youth Forum 

Equality, acceptance and inclusive practice is at the heart of everything delivered for the Gateshead SEND Youth Forum. At the request of forum members sessions have been hybrid for the past couple of years, meaning that the young people can access them either in-person or virtually. This is to ensure that sessions are accessible to anybody that wants to join regardless of any physical or sensorial conditions a young person may have. This also aims to reduce any anxiety which a young person may feel when joining a session - forum members can choose to turn off their camera and/or microphone if they wish to. Additionally, SEND Youth Forum agendas are written in simple English and are always sent well in advance of the meeting so that the young people can prepare anything they would like to bring up, with support if necessary. In order to try and make them as accessible as possible to everybody, meeting minutes are disseminated in a simple animated form with audio and subtitles. Accessible minutes from all meetings can be found on Gateshead's SEND Local Offer website or on the newly developed SEND Youth Forum YouTube playlist. 

Improve our customer knowledge and understanding through data collection, to improve access to and take-up or our services.

Early work on collating data on poverty and disadvantage across Gateshead and amongst particular groups of residents has commenced to inform the development of the Anti-Poverty Strategy.  This will also be used to refresh data and information on the JSNA website and will improve our customer knowledge and understanding.  

Prioritise Customer Experience as pledged in our Corporate Plan 

Resident Engagement Accreditation 

This year, we achieved accreditation status for resident engagement in housing services from TPAS. Following their rigorous assessment, including an evidence-based self-assessment and interviews with a wide range of customers and colleagues. This is the only independent accreditation scheme for resident engagement. It demonstrates our dedication to driving service improvements and provides assurances to our customers, colleagues and councillors that it is embedded in our practices. Their assessment criteria reflects the Housing Regulator's consumer standards, which requires us to listen to the resident voice, know who our customers are and tailor services to meet their needs.  

Customer Scrutiny Review  

Our Housing Resident Influence Panel commissioned a scrutiny review around communications, specifically how we inform our residents about housing services. Part of this review had an additional focus on how we provide information to our residents living in multi-storey flats due to the implications around safety, which included communal areas. This review paid particular focus around how accessible the information is, both printed and digital, such as where the information can be found and whether it is clear to the recipient. Following an in-depth review, residents presented their report and recommendations to our Overview and Scrutiny Committee citing their recommendations. These were fully accepted and an action plan is being implemented. 

Social Housing Regulatory Inspection  

In January 2025 Housing Services were inspected by the Regulator of Social Housing. They conducted a robust inspection programme around their consumer standards, requiring us to complete an in-depth, evidence based self-assessment against their inspection criteria followed by on-site interviews with colleagues and customers. Their Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard has a particular focus around the importance of knowing our customers and tailoring services to meet their needs. Achieving a C2 rating meant we had a good understanding of who our customers are and could show how we have tailored our services to meet the needs of individuals, but there are still some areas for improvement. The action plan resulting from this inspection will help to address their recommendations over the next 12 months.