Strategic Equality Plan 2024-28

How We Developed Our Objectives

Regional Engagement 

We worked collaboratively with public bodies in mid and west Wales to undertake a co-ordinated regional engagement exercise to ask about views on equalities via a survey. The organisations we collaborated with included:

• Carmarthenshire County Council
• Ceredigion County Council
• Hywel Dda University Health Board
• Powys Teaching Health Board
• Police and Crime Commissioner
• Dyfed Powys Police
• Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service
• Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority
• Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority

The survey was available in English and Welsh in both a standard and Easy Read version.  It was also available in Polish, Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian.  Information in other formats was available on request. The survey was hosted on the Carmarthenshire County Council website from 22 May until 30 July 2023. 

The survey was promoted locally via a press release, social media and our Have Your Say website.  It was also promoted internally via the Intranet “Latest News” using the bi-lingual poster and Pembrokeshire Focus Newsletter which is distributed to all staff via email.

The Strategic Equality Group members were asked to promote the consultation via their groups and networks using the bi-lingual posters and links to the consultation website.

The survey was also promoted via Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) website and social media.

We received 60 responses to the survey in Pembrokeshire, with 237 responses received from across the region in total.  There were 73 responses from Carmarthenshire, 28 from Powys, 72 from Ceredigion, 3 from Swansea and 1 from ‘Hywel Dda’.

The survey asked how people from different backgrounds experience six major areas of life:

• Education, Work and Pay, Living Standards (including access to care and support, housing, transport and leisure and access to the coast and countryside) Health, Crime and Justice and Participation (access to information and digital services, influencing decisions, getting on together in the community) and quality of life since 2019.  It asked whether they considered people who shared protected characteristics generally have much better, better, the same, worse or much worse experiences in comparison to the population as a whole. 
• The protected characteristics groups were:Disabled people / people from an ethnic minority / lesbian, gay or bisexual people / people who are non-binary / trans-gender people / younger people (under 25 years) / older people (65 years or older) / females / males / single people / people who are in a relationship / welsh speakers / people who are pregnant or have recently given birth. Whilst not a protected characteristic, respondents were asked if they identified with being a member of the armed forces community.
• We received 60 responses to the survey in Pembrokeshire, with 237 responses received from across the region in total.  There were 73 responses from Carmarthenshire, 28 from Powys, 72 from Ceredigion, 3 from Swansea and 1 from ‘Hywel Dda’.

 

Survey findings for Pembrokeshire respondents 

The groups that featured most frequently as having worse or much worse experiences across the most areas of life were disabled people and people from an ethnic minority.

 

Disabled people

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that disabled people had a worse experience of education, work, levels of pay, access to care and support, housing, access to transport, health leisure and access to coast and countryside, crime, justice services, influencing decisions, information and digital services, getting on in a community and quality of life since 2019.   

 

People from an ethnic minority

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that people from an ethnic minority had a worse experience of education, levels of pay, access to care and support, health, leisure and access to coast and countryside, crime, justice, influencing decisions, information and digital services, getting on in the community, and quality of life since 2019.

 

People who are lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB)

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that LGB people had a worse experience of getting on in the community.

 

People who are non-binary

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) people who are non-binary had a worse experience of education.

 

People who are trans-gender

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that people who are trans-gender had a worse experience of education and getting on together in a community.

 

Younger people (under 25 years)

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that younger people had a worse experience of levels of pay, access to care and support, housing and influencing decisions.

 

Older people (65 years or older)

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that older people had a worse experience of work, access to care and support, access to transport, health, leisure and access to coast and countryside, information and digital services and quality of life since 2019.

 

People who are pregnant or have recently given birth

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that people who are pregnant or have recently given birth had a worse experience of work, levels of pay, and health.

 

Females

It was felt (by the largest number of respondents) that people who are female had a worse experience of crime.

 

Local Engagement

The below table shows the total number of comments that were made related to each category. The responses include all regional responses.

 

Category	Number of comments
Having a disability will affect experience	82
Age will affect experience	62
Language spoken will affect experience	57
Sex will affect experience	54
Ethnic background will affect experience	31
Poor quality public transport will affect experience	24
Being LGBTQ+ will affect experience	21
Being pregnant or recently giving birth will affect experience	15
Living in a rural area will affect experience	12
Less accessible due to cost	12
Everyone is treated equally	10
Relationship status will affect experience	9
Being religious will affect experience	9
Having a mental illness will affect experience	4
Being a member/family of the armed forces will affect experience	6

 

Young Voices for Choices Youth Forum

In addition to the responses received through the regional consultation, 8 young people who are members of the Young Voices for Choices Youth Forum submitted a response.  The Forum works with young people aged 12-25 with additional learning needs/disabilities who meet every 2 weeks during term time. They meet to highlight and discuss issues that affect their lives.

As part of the consultation, it was felt by participants that:

• Disabled people had a worse experience of education, work, care and support, leisure and access to the coast and countryside and crime
• People from ethnic minorities had a worse experience of education and crime
• LGB people had a worse experience of education and leisure and access to the coast and countryside
• Young people under 25, transgender and religious people had a worse experience of crime
• Female, male and transgender people had a worse experience of Education
• All protected characteristics groups had a much worse experience of pay, housing, transport, health, good information and quality of life since 2019.

Young Voices for Choices Youth Forum respondents made these comments in response to the survey questions including:

• Work – not enough support for disabled people and young people under 25, more job opportunities
• Pay – cost of living and inflation, household bills, food and everything
• Care and Support – not enough support available e.g. emotional health, and sometimes difficult to find information
• Housing – lack of social housing, rent is high or unaffordable, youth homelessness is third highest issue concerning young people in Pembrokeshire in the “What Matters to You” consultation.
• Transport – cost, some villages only have a weekly bus, not enough hospital transport
• Leisure an access to the coast and countryside – more choices if you have money and transport, don’t have money or transport
• Health – can’t see a GP, access to a dentist, waiting lists, and long term effects of Covid on services.
• Crime – Hate crime has increased for protected characteristics, increase in online crime and older people vulnerable to financial crime
• Justice – like to think people are treated fairly, evidence more black people are stopped and searched by police
• Having a voice – internet available for people to have a voice, less people respecting each other, not living in kind times
• Good information and technology – more people learnt to use it during Covid, most people have smart phones, parking costs more when you use the app, should be information in different formats, easy read and know where to get right information
• Community – came together during Covid but everything seems to be reverting back
• Public Services – more training around protected characteristics and mental health, be honest and transparent about future plans, listen to public, make better use of resources, protect green spaces, make parking free.

 

Pembrokeshire Youth Assembly

Every two years, the Pembrokeshire Youth Assembly creates and facilitates their ‘What Matters to You?’ Consultation. This consultation identifies what issues matter the most to young people in Pembrokeshire, and what work needs to be done around this. The most recent consultation was held in 2023, and identified the current most important issues. 4028 young people participated in the consultation.

The results show that the top issues or concerns among young people are the cost of living crisis, mental health, emotional health and well-being, and housing. Further details are provided in the Supporting Evidence document.

The findings from the consultations with young people support our new equalities objectives, and in particular the housing objective. 

 

Policy Context

We have looked at the current policy context. A detailed account of this review and the evidence to support the objectives within this strategy can be found within Appendix 1 Supporting Evidence.

Welsh Government reports and data –we looked at a number of Welsh Government strategies, reports and datasets to reflect what is happening on a national level that relates to our equalities objectives:

• Anti-Racism Wales Action Plan
• LGBTQ+ Action Plan
• Cymraeg 2050 Strategy
• Well-being of Future Generations Act: Essentials Guide
• National Survey for Wales 2022-23
• Local Government Candidates Survey 2022
• Labour Market Overview: December 2023
• Labour Market Statistics (Annual Population Survey) 2022-23
• ‘Locked out- liberating disabled people’s lives and rights in Wales beyond COVID-19’ Report
• Affordable housing provision 2022-23
• VAWDASV Strategy 2022-26

UK Government resources and data – we examined a variety of UK government reports, briefings and statistics to help show the national picture of issues contributing to our equality objectives:

• 2020 Sexual Harassment Survey
• Employment of disabled people 2022 statistics
• Women and the UK economy briefing
• Apprenticeship Statistics

Pembrokeshire County Council plans and data – we used a number of Pembrokeshire County Council resources to indicate what is being done on a local level in regard to our equalities objectives.

• Corporate Strategy 2023-28
• Employment Information 2021-22
• Housing Strategy 2024-29
• Participation Strategy 2022-27
• Housing Revenue Account Business Plan 2022-52
• Local Toilet Strategy 2023
• Pembrokeshire County Council webpages

Other plans and data - we looked at a number of other relevant national, regional and local plans and data including:

• Census 2021
• Is Wales Fairer? 2023
• Pembrokeshire County Council 2022/23 Gender Pay Gap Report
• Assessment of Specialist Housing and Accommodation Need for Older People in West Wales 2018
• Housing and Accommodation Needs Assessment for People with Learning Disabilities in West Wales to 2037
• Public Health Wales- Cost of Living Survey
• Crime Survey for England and Wales
• Police.UK data
• Mid and West Wales VAWDASV Strategy 2023-27
• ‘What Matters to You?’ Consultation

Other Strategic Equality Plans – we looked at Strategic Equality Plans produced by a range of other public bodies in Wales, including other local authorities, health and Welsh Government.

The regional and local engagement and national and local policy context and data has been considered and used to develop the objectives within this draft Strategic Equality Plan 2024-28.