Housing Services are committed to planning and delivering services to a diverse community and ensuring fair and equal access for our customers. The following are a list of strategies, partnerships and assessment tools to help achieve this:

• The Black & Minority Ethnic Housing Strategy (BME) Housing Strategy helps to meet the housing needs of BME communities.
• The Race Equality Scheme (RES) helps the Council’s to meet its statutory duty to promote race equality by eliminating unlawful racial discrimination, promoting equality of opportunity and promoting good relations between people of different racial groups.
• The Race Equality Partnership (REP) is a partnership between those committed to promoting racial equality in the borough.
• The Disability, Equality and Access Partnership (DEAP) is a partnership that aims to improve the access of disabled people to services, employment and premises.
• The Equality Impact Needs Assessment (EINA) is a method of assessing the likely differential and/ or adverse impact, projection, function or service on people or individuals from equality target groups. The EINA framework applies to all groups covered by the Council’s equality and diversity policies including young people, older people, women, people from BME backgrounds, faith groups, disabled people and lesbians and gay men.