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This is the council’s fourth Strategic Equality Plan. It describes how it will continue meeting its commitment to equality and how the council will meet its duties set out in the Equality Act 2010.

All public authorities must publish a set of equality objectives and a plan that describes what they will do to reduce inequality and to address prejudice and discrimination.

Neath Port Talbot Council’s equality objectives are outlined below:

• Education To ensure children and young people are the best they can be.
• Health and Wellbeing: To promote wellbeing and good mental. health and tackle mental health stigma and discrimination.
• Personal Safety: To ensure people and communities are safe, respected and free from violence and abuse.
• Employment: To ensure our workforce is more reflective of our community, our policies are fair and equitable and gender pay gaps are reduced. 
• Participation: To ensure services are accessible for all and people and communities are able to better influence decisions that affect them.
• Living standards: To work to reduce poverty and support independent living.​​​​

This plan isn’t something that will sit on the shelf, there will be an annual report on progress against the actions in the action plan. Past annual reports during the period 2020-2024 can be found in the various annual reports: https://beta.npt.gov.uk/council-democracy-elections/strategies-plans-and-policies/equalities/strategic-equality-plan/

Council Leader, Cllr Steve Hunt, said: “Local councils touch the lives of people in very many ways, delivering valuable public services to our communities, day in, day out. To do this effectively, we must consider and provide for the wide range of needs and aspirations of everyone living and working in our county borough.
 
“We have called our plan ‘Let’s Be Fair’ as this is something the council can’t do alone. ‘Let’s Be Fair’ is an invitation to everyone in the county borough to join with us, partners, residents and other stakeholders to work together to make NPT a fairer and more equitable place to live.”

Cllr Simon Knoyle, Neath Port Talbot Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Social Justice, added: “The completion of the draft of the plan builds upon the progress we have already made.

“We welcome people’s views and comments on its various elements and will consider them, along with those received through other engagement activities, when reviewing our equality objectives and associated actions.”