Minutes: February 2008

Minutes of meeting held on Monday 13 February 2008

Item		Action
1.	Present: PG, HT, PW, JW, HO'G, CS, Qahir Sheikh & L Bishop-Bailey - Wilts Police, Cllr D Dart, D Corcoran - Swindon College, Nick Stephenson - SBC, Kati Wood - SBC, Kathleen Daley - SBC Apologies: Ann Parker-Griffiths, PS, RB, SN, NJ, KW, CR Paul welcomed everyone to the meeting.
2.	Minutes of last meeting:
	With two amendments these were agreed as a true record - Cllr D Dart gave her apologies. Item 2 - 9.4 amend last sentence to read 'The Coalition would like to say it took a lot of courage'.
	Matters Arising:
	Item 3 - Report on Homophobic Bullying: Kati advised that Paula Harrison was arranging an event for teachers to promote community cohesion and would be very interested in including Julie, or some input from her, for a workshop at that event. She is in communication with the schools and the education team and it would be a good way to take this forward.
	ACTION: Kati to advise Paula that we would like to be involved in the presentation for teachers.	KW
	Item 6 Coalitions' Review - Paul and Helen had sent in feedback forms to Paula.
3	Stonewall Index - Nick Stephenson:
	Nick said Stonewall was a national charity supporting gay rights. He mentioned their present poster campaign and then spoke about their Diversity Champions programme that employers can pay into and work with Stonewall, and each other, to promote diversity in the workplace and support for LGB staff. This was good for the Council to use and had given us free access to online features, only available to members of the programme, including their employment guide. He suggested getting Stonewall down to help us work on monitoring. Nick said this membership gave them access to Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index that lists the top 100 workplaces for LGB staff in Britain. He said we were applying this year and hadn't applied before because he didn't think we were ready. Nick spoke about a draft Good Practice Guide showing best working practices for LGBT staff in Swindon. This has been to Helen and Paul and was currently with Unison who had given them lots of things to think about. It was hoped to launch this and the diversity champions at the end of April. He was researching into the possibility of establishing more staff networks, one of which would be an LGBT network and another possibly for disabled and around carers. Nick advised they were currently reviewing the Equal Opportunities Policy and the intention was to give a more explicit commitment about what being an equal opportunities employer meant. Capita had agreed that staff delivering SBC work could attend the Black Workers Group and they are looking for the same concession to attend any further networks set up. ACTION: Paul asked if Nick could report back on Stonewall to a future meeting.
4/6.	Themes for the Year and Swindon LGBT Population and the Media:
	Paul said it was important to plan, for the next 12 or 18 months, themes for discussion that we believe affect the LGBT population and that the Council should look at, such as: Impact of the Single Equality Act? Impact on equality work of the Council's decision to change to Commissioning for Voluntary & Community Sector? What effect will LINks have on Social Care? LGBT History Month - bypassed last year but we need to put something into place for next year. The suggestion to use Wharf Green as one venue for LGBT history month raised an issue regarding the BBC television screen and the fact that it should be used for local news and events rather than national. It was felt that the media only reported negative news about Swindon and we as LGBT Coalition have great difficulty advertising what we want to do. Swindon was badly covered by the media, especially for people who don't go to pubs or come to this Coalition. LGBT History Month would be the right time for working with other LGBT groups in Swindon. Helen said the Coalition should have a presence at the Holocaust Memorial Day and also, as a group go to Oxford Pride to advertise LGBT Swindon. Kati advised that the Pride Committee have been invited to have a stand at Gloucester Pride event. Nick said given the work already started one of the themes needed to be bullying and we should keep pushing on this and keep on the agenda.
	ACTION: Think about this and bring ideas to next meeting.	All
5.	Pride Update:
	James advised that last month they held the last of the Pride Idol events and it had been a great success and very good advertising for the Pride Event on 16 August. They had received a very good response from the 2 venues where events were held. The arrangements were going ahead and all we now needed was more money and more people taking notice though we had received over 5,000 hits on the new website. People are interested because Swindon is new. Paul thanked James on behalf of the Coalition for the work he has put in. Phil advised that Swindon Commercial Services were providing security and they had provided Pride with some sponsorship. He talked through the site plan and there was then discussion about the placement of items. He advised that the date is an existing date; it is not an additional date. There will be no car park but buses will ferry people up and down and it might be worth negotiating with Commonweal School. There will be disabled parking. There was discussion about applying for road closure of Quarry Road. Phil will ring Jane and see what she decides.
6.	Hate Crime Report - Qahir Sheikh (Report circulated)
	Paul asked how we compared to other similar size towns? Qahir said until very recently when the system was changed Swindon had been one of the top performing police authorities. We do act on more cases than other authorities, we pick up something verbally, report it and then act on that. We also have a very high detection rate in Wiltshire. Paul asked about incidents outside the Pink Rooms. Craig said they get occasional incidents but nothing to warrant concern. They would advise customers to come back in and get them a cab but he wouldn't report it. This happens about once or twice a month. They do put messages on the screens inside about getting home safely.
7.	Governor Support Response (copy circulated)
	Paul said the Coalition needed to declare very clearly that they were appalled there was no mandatory training for Governors and wondered how people were screened before they get the job. Bridget makes the point that if you put too many pressures on people you will drive them away, but if Governors don't have any knowledge of equalities how can they deal with bullying and other equalities issues? Following general discussion Paul said this Coalition had to fight to insist homophobic bullying in schools was stamped out and thought governors and teachers were ignorant of what homophobic bullying in schools was doing to our young people. David suggested you needed to say there was an issue and we wanted to do something about it, otherwise this might put up a barrier. Paul said he didn't have any experience of what was going on in schools at the moment except Pride Youth talking about their experiences in schools. He did not want to alienate people. Paul said he was not going to respond formally to Bridget yet.
8.	Swindon College / New College Equality Schemes: copies of these schemes were circulated at the meeting.
	ACTION: Ask Swindon Schools for a copy of their Equalities Scheme.	KD
9.	LGBT Champion for Children and Young People's Partnership Board:
	It was agreed we would contact three members of this Board to see if they would be willing to look after LGBT issues for us on this Board.	KD
10.	Feedback from Equalities Advisory Forum and Issues to be raised at EAF Interim.
	Helen said there was a very good presentation from the Housing Directorate, talking about the new system of bidding for properties instead of the points system used at present.
11.	Any Other Business:
11.1	Phil said an emergency plan was being written and he wanted to include a page about what LGBT do as a group and also put a page where people can leave comments. They are looking at what services are out there and what services we would recommend to our customers.
11.2	David said one of the reasons he came tonight was to see if they could link into the event at all. Craig suggested they could put a show together for a fund raising event that related to Gay Life in Swindon. David will contact James about that. Helen suggested they could link into the student union.
11.3	James said he had put LGBT into Fine Times, Gay Community Support also Victim Support because it was completely empty.
12.	Dates of future meetings: Wed 9 Apr CR2 6-8pm Wed 11 June CR2 6-8pm Wed 13 Aug CR2 6-8pm Wed 8 Oct CR2 6-8pm Wed 10 Dec CR2 6-8pm

Return to Reports