Severn Vale Housing Society

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.

Achievement of Objectives

To ensure these objectives are achieved Severn Vale Housing Society will:

• Keep the membership of its governing bodies under review, and consider ways to reflect the representation of people from BME communities.
• Ensure the Board are kept well informed about equality issues.
• Seek to ensure that mechanisms for consultation, tenant involvement and participation promote the full and active involvement of all BME tenants.
• Use appropriate means of communication to take account of the ethnic make-up of its customers.
• Discourage tenants voicing discriminatory views in meetings or correspondence.
• Ensure its procedure on selection of contractors and contract compliance does not adversely affect BME contractors.
• Ensure that its contractors comply with its equality practices and do not discriminate in the execution of contracts through the contractor code of conduct.
• Work in Partnership with Local Authorities and other local agencies to ensure that housing needs and aspirations amongst BME tenants and groups are assessed.
• Ensure that it has effective policies in place to deal with harassment and anti-social behaviour. This will include support for victims using local support agencies.
• Ensure that access to its properties is open and accountable and gives equal access to all groups of applicants.
• Monitor lettings to BME households.
• Publicise its services to all tenants.
• Adopt clear non-discriminatory housing management, maintenance and contract policies and procedures.
• Encourage residents to indicate clear preferences in order to provide a fair, equitable and culturally sensitive service.

Responsibility

The Chief Executive is responsible for the effective implementation of this policy and for ensuring that all staff are adequately trained in the Society’s policy.

Review

The Society will review this Policy in accordance with its mechanism on policy review.

Reporting

Via CORE statistics and on an annual basis to the Board through the BME report and action planning process.

Diversity

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