Foreword
The National Assembly for Wales Commission (Assembly Commission) is a new body that came into being in May 2007 and this is our first Equality Scheme. We have developed this Equality Scheme to assist our organisation in promoting equality, valuing diversity and in identifying and removing potential barriers to equality for our staff, Assembly Members, their staff and members of the public.
The Equality Scheme outlines what we will do to meet the requirements of the public sector equality duties for disability, gender (including gender identity) and race. We have however, extended this Equality Scheme to cover the other aspects of equality: age, religion/belief and sexual orientation.
Human Rights principles (including fairness, dignity and respect) also underpin the development of this Equality Scheme.We believe that equality and human rights should be integrated into our working practices to benefit all people. This Equality Scheme takes account of the fact that people are individuals and have differing requirements. Both the Scheme and its Action Plan aim to address specific and multiple disadvantages by identifying and removing barriers to equality. As an employer, we value the contribution made by each member of staff and we want to support them to ensure they realise their full potential.
As a service provider, we want to support Assembly Members to allow them to do their jobs effectively. For the public, we want the Assembly to be accessible and to provide the best possible service (visitor services, information and education, access to proceedings and participation). Our Action Plan details what steps we need to take to achieve this and also addresses the findings from our recent consultation and involvement exercises and sets out what has been identified as our priority equality outcomes and actions.
We are pleased that in developing our Equality Scheme, we have been able to involve a diverse range of individuals and organisations that constitute society in Wales today. We are grateful to those individuals and organisations who contributed to the development of our Equality Scheme and welcome further feedback on what you think we are doing well and where you feel we can improve.
Presiding Officer and Chair of the Assembly Commission
The Rt Hon the Lord Elis-Thomas AM
Chief Executive and Clerk to the Assembly
Claire Clancy
