Severn Vale Housing Society

Introduction

The Society aims to provide good quality housing at affordable rents to those in housing need.

Policy

The Society will allocate its property taking several factors into account including housing need, community requirements, housing supply and demand, sustainability of the tenancy.

The Society wishes to ensure equality of opportunity in access to its accommodation and in allocation of property. In order to assess whether it is achieving this objective the Society monitors the ethnic origin of those who apply for housing and of those who are re-housed.

Policy Statement

Severn Vale Housing Society wants to encourage Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) customers to actively participate in the development of its services and the organisation will aim to take account of BME views in the formulation of policy and procedures.

Policy Objectives

• To ensure that BME customers are empowered.
• To combat both direct and indirect racial discrimination.
• To communicate and publicise the Society’s policy to all its customers.
• To consult, involve and liaise with BME customers wherever possible in designing services.
• To liaise and build links with BME customers.
• To work in partnership with a wide variety of organisations in the statutory, voluntary and private sectors to promote and communicate the Society’s commitment to racial equality.
• To develop and maintain monitoring systems to help identify discriminatory practices and report these to the Board.
• To review policies on a regular basis and amend them to take account of best practice and legislation.

Policy Statement

Severn Vale Housing Society seeks to achieve equality of treatment for all customers, without discrimination or prejudice on the grounds of a person's race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, cultural background, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability. The Society undertakes to deal firmly and promptly with any cases of discrimination or harassment.

All employees are required to follow and implement the Society's policies on equal opportunities and to undergo any training and development activities associated with that policy.

Policy Statement

The Society aims to ensure that all complaints of harassment are dealt with promptly and effectively.

Approach

The Society has adopted specific protocols to deal with harassment, racial harassment and sexual harassment through its Anti-Social Behaviour Policy and its Racial Harassment Policy. The Society has adopted a victim centred approach to each complaint of harassment i.e. if the victim believes that they have been the subject of harassment, then this must be accepted in the first instance.