The development of a new Equality scheme in 2009 gave Nottingham City Council the opportunity to simplify its approach to equalities and embed it into services, departments and key processes such as performance management and commissioning.

This approach has already brought a number of benefits including clearly showing the Council's equality priorities and how people can support them, an emphasis on outcomes rather than activities, clear accountability and a greater freedom for officers to achieve outcomes through existing work.

The strategic alliance of High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and the sharing of its services, including an Equality & Diversity Policy Officer, has already begun to generate savings and increase efficiency in just under a year.

In just twelve months, Leicestershire County Council implemented substantial service improvements to achieve the Level 3 Equality Standard.Using an innovative programme of Positive Action methods, team engagement and member training, it has effectively embedded Equality and Diversity into the culture of the organisation.

Following Mansfield District Council’s Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) in 2003, Equality and Diversity was considered a key area for improvement and immediate action was taken to address this, incorporating equality targets into the Corporate Plan aiming towards achieving Level 4 by 2009. With this goal successfully achieved the Authority are now aiming for ‘Excellent’, against the revised Equality Framework.