Council named as a Disability Confident Leader

Disability Confident is a scheme developed by the Department for Work & Pensions, employers and disabled people’s representatives.

It is designed to create a movement of change, encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.

As a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2), the Council committed to recruiting, retaining and ensuring opportunities such as apprenticeships are available to disabled people, offering interviews to applicants who meet the minimum job criteria and making reasonable adjustments as required.

To achieve Leader (Level 3) status the Council had to demonstrate it:

• Provides a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process
• Is flexible when assessing people so applicants have the best opportunity to demonstrate they can do the job.
• Proactively offers and make reasonable adjustments
• Encourages suppliers and partner firms to be Disability Confident
• Ensures employees have appropriate disability equality awareness training.
• Provides an environment that is inclusive and accessible for staff, clients and customers
• Offers innovative and effective approaches to encourage disabled people to apply for opportunities and supports them when they do.
• Supports employees to manage their disabilities or health conditions
• Values and listens to feedback from disabled staff.
• Records and reports on disability, mental health and wellbeing in the workplace

The self-assessment evidence was independently validated by an external organisation.

Deputy Council Leader, Cllr Abdul Salam Khan, who Co-chairs the Council’s Diversity and Inclusion Board with Cllr Richard Brown, said: “We are delighted to earn this status. It is the result of a lot of good work over recent years to drive better diversity and inclusion and be the best employer we can be.

“Now we have to continue that work and not only improve within the Council, but also act as a champion within the local and business communities. This means encouraging and supporting other businesses in our supply chains and networks to become Disability Confident.”

Cllr Brown added: “I’d like to thank everyone who has helped to make this possible, including our Disabled Employee Network for the way it supports colleagues and gives them a voice, and works to bring about positive change.

“Though becoming a Disability Confident Leader is great progress, there is still work for us all to do to ensure we are a fully accessible and inclusive organisation."

Chris McLatchie-Wade, Co-Chair of the DEN, said: “This is great news for the Council, those who work here and the people this will help to work here in the future. The network is really pleased that it has been able to work closely with other parts of the organisation to help achieve this. 

“Now, we will continue to support change within the organisation to improve accessibility and inclusivity. So much progress has been made over the last couple of years and we are excited to see that continue.”

You can learn more about DEN and join the network on the intranet.