Agenda item

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“         RELEVANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1         The Members will be aware that the Council received complaints from three individuals relating to the recent Flag Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA), alleging that they considered the Council to be in breach of its own approved Equality Scheme.

2         The complaints received, in date order, were from:

  4 January     Mr William Gilliland

10 January     Councillor Lee Reynolds, on behalf of the DUP Group

11 January     Mr Raymond Laverty, on behalf of the PUP.

3         Copies of all three letters of complaint have been circulated with this report for information; Members may be aware that these are already in the public domain.

4         The text of the PUP complaint is identical to that submitted previously by Mr Gilliland.  The PUP website features their letter and encourages the public to download it, print and sign it and send it to the Council; to date we have received over 500 such letters.

5         The DUP issued a press release on 10 January to which their full complaint was attached.

6         Acknowledgement letters have been sent to all three individual complainants, informing them that their complaints would be investigated under the standard equality complaints procedure as set out in Chapter 8 of the Council’s Equality Scheme. 

7         Our Equality Scheme requires us to respond to equality complaints within 30 working days – i.e. by 15 February for the first complaint received.

           KEY ISSUES

8         The equality complaints were reported on 18 January 2013 to the Joint Diversity Group of Party Group Leaders and Centenaries Working Group, which agreed that a report on the investigation of the complaints would be submitted to the Strategic Policy & Resources Committee in due course.

9         The first stage of the Equality Scheme complaints procedure is an internal investigation by the Equality & Diversity Officer and this has now been completed.  Proposed draft Council responses to each of the three complaints are attached for the Committee’s approval.  The issues raised in the complaints have been examined in detail and in each case the investigations have found that the complaints cannot be upheld.

10       Members should be aware that if the complainants do not accept the decision of the Council in this matter they may raise their complaint with the Equality Commission.  The Council will of course co-operate fully with the Equality Commission if any subsequent investigation is found necessary.

11      Multiple complaints

           Normally we would acknowledge receipt of all equality complaints received and respond to them individually. However, since we have received multiple versions of the PUP complaint – all identical – we have discussed with the Equality Commission the best way to respond to these, ensuring that we comply with our Equality Scheme, but taking into account the impact of this on Council business because of the disproportionate amount of staff time involved and the associated cost to the Council and its ratepayers.

12       The Equality Commission has considered this issue and has replied in writing, stating that although an acknowledgement would be required for each complainant (under paragraphs 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6) the Equality Scheme does not indicate the method to be used for this.  The Equality Commission has stated that “In individual circumstances, where there is an individual complaint, it is reasonable to expect that this would be done in writing by letter to the person.   In the case of a large number of identified complaints, such as you describe, the proposal that the acknowledgement letter would refer the bulk complainants to the Council’s website and/or press release and/or public adverts for example, would appear to be a proportionate approach in these circumstances”.

           Equality and Good Relations Implications

13       These complaints have all been dealt with under our existing Equality Scheme procedures.

           Resource Implications

14       All complaints are being dealt with within existing resources.

           Recommendations

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1)    To approve the draft responses attached and agree that the individual complainants be notified that, following an internal investigation by the Equality & Diversity Officer in accordance with the Equality Scheme, their complaints cannot be upheld

2)    To approve the approach outlined above for acknowledgement and response to multiple complainants.”

            After discussion, the Committee adopted recommendation (1) as set out and agreed, since an acknowledgement letter would be forwarded to each of the complainants included in the multiple complaint submission, that an individual response be sent to each of those persons also.