GB-London: engaging equalities in policy work

The LGA's Policy Directorate leads on the lobby work of the LGA ensuring that the voice of local government is heard by national decision-makers on a range of issues that are important to councils and local communities.

According to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, "Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents. It is also the belief that no one should have poorer life chances because of the way they were born, where they come from, what they believe, or whether they have a disability. Equality recognises that historically certain groups of people with protected characteristics such as race, disability, sex and sexual orientation have experienced discrimination."

The COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a magnifying glass, demonstrating the interconnected and structural issues that exacerbate inequality within communities in the UK. Alongside the increased attention to racial inequality following the global solidarity movement in response to the murder of George Floyd, councils have sought to address these issues and have turned to the LGA for leadership and support.

In response, the LGA made 'Narrowing inequalities' a business priority with a focus on reviewing and strengthening the LGA's work on reducing inequalities and promoting equality through our policy messaging and lobbying.

The LGA Policy Directorate is made up of about 60-70 staff members including finance policy colleagues, support staff and the Member Services Team who run the LGA policy boards. The Directorate is now working to embed an equalities approach across out work, which includes making changes to how we approach our policy development and lobbying work, changing our expectations and objectives, and being more holistic in our approach to intersecting inequalities. To make these changes, staff need to feel prepared, equipped, and confident to addressing equalities issues in their policy areas. To support this, we have hosted several away days for policy colleagues to initiate conversations around equalities and receive some training on good practice.

We are seeking a confident facilitator with expertise exploring equalities considerations within policy work, explaining frameworks such as the social model of disability and working with colleagues to think through how to demonstrate complex, intersecting equalities issues within their policy work to deliver a half-day session, which includes discussion and learning activities to encourage discussion and collective problem-solving around integrating equalities thinking across a disparate range of policy areas.

The LGA inhabits a unique role within local government in its supportive function of councils and the successful bidder will be attentive to this in shaping the delivery of this work.

(see appendix 2 for full specification)