Gender Equality

Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority have produced a Gender Equality Scheme, in line with the requirements of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, as amended by the Equality Act 2006.

Click here to view the published Gender Equality Scheme 2007/10

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service has worked in partnership with Cannock Chase District Council, East Staffordshire Borough Council, Keele University, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, Lichfield District Council, South Staffordshire District Council, Stafford Borough Council and Staffordshire County Council, North and East Staffordshire Racial Equality Councils to produce a Gender Equality Scheme (GES).

We welcome this legislation and are fully committed to eliminating unlawful discrimination, harassment and promoting equality of opportunity between men, women, transgender persons, boys and girls.

We believe our partnership approach in producing a Disability Equality Scheme in December 2005 led us to achieve more meaningful engagement with disability organisations and groups as we pooled all our contacts together into one database enabling us to contact over 284 local organisations and groups across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire inviting them to be involved in the creation of the Scheme.
We have decided to adopt the same approach in terms of carrying out engagement activities for the GES. We have sent out letters to over 90 gender groups across the county of Staffordshire to invite them to be involved in our scheme. From this we will be running a number of round table discussions asking people to give their opinions on accessing our services.

In terms of engagement with the transgender community, we have recently become sponsors of the Gender Advisory Bureau who provide transgender training, consultation and who will assist with the facilitation of our involvement activities.

Working with our partners, we will strive to ensure that our priorities reflect the differing needs of the male, female and transgender members of our communities. It is important that employees and residents across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire are involved in the development and delivery of this Scheme, as this will ensure that the duty leads to real outcomes and practical improvements. That is why we need your views to identify the important issues which need to be added to our GES Action Plan.

To help us do this, we would like you to get in touch with us by filling in an involvement form and providing us with your contact details and availability.
Once completed, please forward to:

Sobia Yaqoob
Equality & Diversity Department
Fire Service HQ
Pirehill
Stone
Staffordshire
ST15 0BS

Email: s.yaqoob@staffordshirefire.gov.uk
Tel: 01785 898573

We will then get in touch with you to inform you of the round table discussions that we will be arranging in the near future. Every effort will be made to take into account timing and days specified by all who have expressed an interest.

Feedback from all of the involvement events will be forwarded to partner organisations to enable them to identify what issues are relevant to their own individual organisations. We will also inform all who have taken part in being involved in the development of the GES, of the actions that have been highlighted from the focus groups or round table discussions.