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Devon County Council is committed to promoting racial equality and tackling racism and discrimination in Devon.  We welcome our statutory duty to advance racial equality, eliminate discrimination and foster good relations between people.

Sometimes decisions can be made, and actions taken, which unintentionally affect certain groups of people in a negative way, this is often because of a lack of understanding of the needs and aspirations of ethnic minority communities, sometimes resulting in prejudice and stereotyping.  The result may lead to a lack of opportunity, difficulty in accessing services or a failure to have a need identified.  This was the main finding of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.  We are determined that we do everything we can to avoid this.  Our community is becoming increasingly diverse and like other public authorities, we are here to serve all the people of Devon - from all cultures, racial, national and ethnic backgrounds.

As part of our commitment to encouraging diversity in our workforce we provide robust recruitment training, as well as general awareness training that targets managers responsible for recruiting their staff.  We also monitor all job applications and recruitment processes within the Council and would like to encourage people to complete diversity monitoring forms so that we can gain an accurate picture of how successful our policies and practices are.  We monitor the ethnicity of our staff on an annual basis.  Select here to see the summary and compare this to local, regional, national and international statistics.

Useful links

• Grapevine - an online social networking and consultation opportunity for for people from different cultures living in Devon.
• Devon BME Directory (1.00MB - pdf help)  - Organisations serving Black and Minority Ethnic Communities.

Research and reports

• Promoting Diversity and Resilience (543KB - pdf help) - Improving the life chances of children looked-after from Black and other minority ethnic sub-groups
• A Question of Fairness (367KB - pdf help) - An enquiry into the health and social care needs of Muslim elders in Exeter (Apr 2004)
• Inside Outside (206KB - pdf help) - Improving Mental Health Services for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in England (Aug 2003)
• Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health Care (1.28MB - pdf help) - An action plan for reform inside and outside services (Jan. 2005)
• Breaking the circles of fear (888KB - pdf help) - A review of the relationship between mental health services and African and Caribbean communities.
• Learning Disability and Ethnicity (273KB - pdf help) - A Framework for Action.
• Gypsies, travellers and discrimination law (62KB - pdf help)
• NHS Race Equality Guide 2004 (214KB - pdf help) - A performance framework
• Race Equality and Procurement in local government (676KB - pdf help) - a Guide to meeting the duty to promote race equality
• Case Study - an audit tool (490KB - pdf help) - from The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health
• Independent Inquiry into the death of David Bennett (803KB - pdf help)
• Mental Health Services for Black and Minority Ethnic Groups (123KB - pdf help) - making change happen
• Ombudsman's 2003-04 Social Services Case Studies (82KB - pdf help)
• Finding adoptive families for black, Asian and black mixed-parentage children (54KB - pdf help). - Policy and Practice
• Ethnicity, work characteristics, stress and health (881KB - pdf help). - HSE Research Report 2005
• Powerless, poor and passed over: Black and minority ethnic women in the UK (103KB - pdf help) - Press release from the Fawcett Society February 2005
• "Help at Hand" pamphlet (95KB - pdf help) - Video available to support Asian families in need (in six languages)
• The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
• Tackling racially motivated crime - lessons from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry