Equality and Diversity

Treating everyone fairly

We treat everyone fairly, with respect and courtesy. Valuing differences and promoting inclusiveness are fundamental to us. This means that the way we work must be free from discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or any other irrelevant factors.

We are fully committed to creating equality, fairness and to ensure that nobody is treated unfairly when we decide:

Who we house;
How services are provided;
Who sits on our Board;
How we employ staff or train and promote them;
How we select contractors or give work to outside bodies.

Everyone at Victory is required to try and take into account the preferences of our tenants, leaseholders and customers. These are some of the things we do:

Avoid sending contractors to do repairs at a time when we know that a parent is doing a 'school run';
Ask a contractor to wait longer if we know that someone has mobility
problems so they have more time to get to the door;
Offer early or late slots for repairs appointments for people who work;
Repair something more speedily to increase security in a serious case of anti social behaviour, violence or harassment, or where there is a vulnerable person

DIVERSITY AT VICTORY

We have recently agreed an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. In this strategy we have committed to doing the following:

To positively promote equality between all groups
To have clear standards which will help us to promote equality
To screen all our policies and procedures – this is to check that we do not inadvertently disadvantage certain groups when we carry out our work
To consider equality and diversity when we are delivering our services or when we act as an employer.
Recently it has been required of landlords that they develop and implement equality schemes – these are schemes which set out how we intend to do our bit to promote equality. Currently we are required to have the following schemes:

We published these schemes in June 2008. We are now starting to put in place the action plans, and are doing the following:

Sending out satisfaction surveys to people who have used our services – when we send out these surveys we are asking people to tell us about their nationality, age, gender and any disability. This is so that we can measure the satisfaction with services between groups – if we find that one group is more dissatisfied with how services are delivered than others then we will look into why thisi is and consider how we can make things better

We are shortly setting up a Diversity Steering Group – this groups will be made up of residents and staff. The Group will be looking at the way that we do things and working to ensure that we do things fairly. The Group will consider the findings of the satisfaction surveys amongst other things

Trying to encourage more people from different backgrounds and ages etc to get in touch with us – we are aware that a lot of the residents who help us review our services are of similar profile. We are keen to hear from a wider range of people so that we can do more to take the views of a wide range of people into account.

Equality and Diversity Values Statement for resident groups

We are keen to ensure that all residents who get involved feel valued and supported. We have set out the ways we intend to ensure this through the Equality and Diversity Values Statement for Residents Groups. The Statement explains how resident groups will operate in such a way as to ensure that people do not feel excluded or unable to take part fully.

If you are interested in getting involved in the Diversity Steering Group or any of the other Resident groups, or you have any feedback on this page please contact Jane Bassil, Community Involvement Officer on 01692 502421 or email jane.bassil@victoryhousing.co.uk.

To read the full Diversity Policy please click here

Why not tell us about your needs or preferences by completing this form? The information will be treated in confidence