Equality in Wandsworth

Wandsworth is a diverse borough where the majority of residents feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together.

As part of this we, as a Council, are fully committed to equal opportunities both as a provider of services to our residents and businesses and as an employer.

In particular, we will ensure that no service user is discriminated against (indirectly, directly or by association) on the grounds of race, sex, gender reassignment, marital or partnership status, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief, HIV status, or disability.

We do this by:

• Reviewing who uses our services in order to identify any gaps
• Using Equality Impact Needs Assessments to ensure our Councillors are aware of the equality impact of decisions they are considering. These are collated on our measuring equality section and published individually as part of the Overview and Scrutiny agenda
• Using national data to identify any trends or issues we need to be aware of
• Reviewing and monitoring our workforce profile
• Working towards a set of strategic equality objectives, and
• Recognising our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty 2011

Resident profile

Borough-level data from the 2021 Census can be found on Datawand. 

The ONS website has a function to build custom area profiles. This allows the user to select up to 28 topics to compare. Topics include equalities, education level, housing and language. 

For data on the protected characteristics, see our data explorer dashboard. Visit the languages spoken page on Datawand to find out more information on language. 

Socio-economic duty 

Socio-economic differences mean that not everyone has the same opportunities to live, thrive and prosper as other members of our community. The socio-economic duty seeks to ensure that addressing deprivation and economic disadvantage, in all its forms, is at the heart of our decision-making. 

We are one of the first councils to adopt the socio-economic duty as part of its broader equality duty. It requires us to adopt transparent and effective measures to address the inequalities that result from differences in occupation, education, place of residence, health and deprivation. The socio-economic duty includes:

• Deprivation - this is measured by the 2019 English Indices of Deprivation
• Low-income groups and employment
• Carers
• Care experienced people
• Single parents
• Health inequalities
• Refugee status

The socio-economic duty will be addressed through our Equality Impact Needs Assessments.

Contact

Contact us about equalities information:

Email: equality@wandsworth.gov.uk