Questions posed to the Leader of Liverpool City Council, 8th July 2009 - Q11

With my E&D hat on, I asked a number of questions of the Leader at Liverpool City Council's full council meeting on 8th July.

Please see the written question, written answer and verbal supplementary questions (which I prepared in advance so have a record of) I have no record of the verbal answers, these are not recorded anywhere, but will do my best to recall them.

Question 11
If this link does not work, it may be because it is internal, however I have faithfully recorded the detail here below.

Question:

Training in "Managing equalities" is compulsory for all managers within Liverpool City Council. Can the Leader say how many of the Executive Directors, Assistant Executive Directors and Heads of Business units and the Chief Executive have already undertaken this training? What is this in percentage terms?

Answer
At present one third of the managers have attended 'Managing Equality' training. The
target date set for this for completion of this training for this group of managers is 31st March 2010.

Supplementary verbal question

In 2000, the Report of the Equal Opportunities Public Review, chaired by Councillor Marilyn Fielding stated that “Liverpool City Council has no strategic equalities training programme. As a result, councillors, managers and employees are ill equipped to understand the complexities of equal opportunities and how to apply it to their day-to-day work”. Consequently she and the other 13 members of the panel (7 councillors and 7 lay advisors), recommended compulsory Equalities Training for all staff. 7 years later, in 2007, following a disappointing start, it was agreed that all members of the Executive Team, AEDs and Heads of Business would complete a compulsory course named “Managing Equalities”, directed particularly at managers. The deadline for completing this vital training is indeed March 2010.

Does the Leader agree with me that progress continues to be disappointing with only a third of the team having received training with 2 years having already passed? What steps is he taking to ensure that these remaining 50 very senior managers undertake this training in time?

Verbal answer:
He said he did agree with me that more needed to be done and promised it would be