East Riding of Yorkshire Council: local authority assessment

While the local authority undertook some work to understand and identify barriers to care and support, actions to reduce inequalities from recommendations were limited. There were significant shortfalls in the identification and recording of people’s protected characteristics which limited the local authority’s ability to ensure equity in experience and outcomes. More support was needed with seldom-heard communities to understand their experiences and work with those communities to meet their needs.

The local authority undertook work to understand its local population profile and demographics, for example the Inclusion Health Needs Assessment published in November 2024, to understand local needs for care and support. The Inclusion Health Needs Assessment highlighted concerns for key communities in the area, such as veterans, people who were rough sleeping, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people (LGBTQ+), and people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. The local authority used data alongside insights from professionals, community groups, and people with lived experiences, to develop the Inclusion Health Needs Assessment. This resulted in targeted recommendations for services working with inclusion health groups. Specific needs assessments to understand the experiences and needs of communities within the area were completed, such as the LGBTQ+ needs assessment and the sensory impairment needs assessment.

The local authority had regard to its Public Sector Equality Duty (Equality Act 2010) in the way it delivered its Care Act functions. Equality Impact Assessments were produced to support decision making. Needs assessments and additional consultation and engagement with community groups supported the development of the local authority’s Equality Plan, which had recently been updated and published online. Staff told us certain communities had asked for more support from the local authority to help them be a part of the wider East Riding community. A consultation to support the development of the anti-racism strategy, for example, was ongoing at the time of our assessment. While we heard that another service within the local authority had developed anti-racist practice, this had not been developed more widely or specifically for adult social care and was not in place at the time of our assessment. The anti-racism strategy consultation’s initial feedback indicated some people described personal experiences of racism in their communities and where improvements in the wider system approach to racism and hate crime were needed. Some staff had experienced racial abuse and had not been clear about the support available to them, highlighting the need for the work to progress.

Staff and leaders understood some of the impact of the specific geography, population age demographic and deprivation in the area on people’s experiences. Specific projects, such as an inclusion vehicle had been set up to reach out to people with dementia across the county who found it harder to access services. Transport was described as a key issue by people who used services and recognised by staff and leaders as a key aspect that affected people’s experiences of care and support and potential outcomes. The local authority had completed some work as part of the Age-Friendly Network in recognition of the challenges of an ageing population in the area. The Age Friendly Community State of Ageing Report was published in January 2025 and further work was ongoing to move to the ‘act and implement’ stage of the process in the coming year. Considering the expected population growth in people aged 65 and over in the county, this represented a significant area of action needing to progress to meet the needs of the population.

Recording of information related to equality and diversity for people who received care and support had not been mandatory in local authority recording systems, and completion rates were low. The lack of recording system controls to mandate the inclusion of this information had deprioritised the importance of this information. The local authority told us that in relation to ethnicity data, after ‘White English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British’, the next largest ethnicity groups were where ethnicity was recorded as variations of not known or refused. Sexuality was not recorded in the majority of instances. This limited the local authority’s ability to fully understand the needs of the people they supported, which inhibited their ability to plan for and meet those needs. Some staff recognised the need to improve this and were working on developing data reports but this was not in place at the time of our assessment.

There were specific partnership groups in place in the local authority working with people and partners to understand the needs of the local community, for example with people with a learning disability and carers. Some partners said there was more to do for the local authority to learn about seldom heard groups and how best to engage them. This was reflected by some people we spoke to and the local authority. There was a recognition by some carers, for example, that older carers would not be able to challenge the local authority and would have had poorer experiences. People said there was minor involvement in co-production from the Traveller community and no identified actions to increase involvement from the LGBTQ+ community, despite this being an identified need in a recent survey. Further support to engage autistic people in co-production was also highlighted as needed. A lack of the voices of people with a wide variety of experiences in co-production reduced the ability of these groups to meet the needs of the breadth of the population.

There were early plans to develop outreach into parish council meetings and expanding advertising of opportunities to engage with the local authority in supermarkets and pharmacies. There was work ongoing to base some staff such as care coordinators in public facing community venues, such as libraries. However, these plans were at a very early stage. Staff said that it was rurality that most affected the services people received. Some staff told us the impact of the geography of the area isolated communities further. While leaders recognised communities had developed services to meet their own needs, there was more to do to connect into these groups to ensure people were supported and to ensure the right services were available where communities hadn’t developed their own services. For example, one staff group told us about initial work that had been explored with a local Imam for drop-in sessions from adult social care, but these had not yet been arranged. The local authority did not have a centralised strategy or outlined published vision for the voluntary and community sector, including grassroots organisations, to support equality and diversity goals.

Some partners told us there were a lack of services to meet the needs of ethnic minority communities in the area, such as the Muslim community and people from Eastern Europe and the Ukraine, despite rising populations. Some of the staff and leaders we spoke to agreed. Staff added further work was needed with the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller community: some work was ongoing to build literacy and access to health services but this had not extended to adult social care.

Staff told us they worked hard to advocate for people and they used their assessments as a tool to identify cultural and identity related needs, including sexuality and gender. The prisons team worked closely with diversity officers within prisons to identify and respond in a person-centred way, for example in relation to gender transition. Some staff described the way they responded to communication needs or cultural needs in ways that were responsive, considerate and person-centred. However, some staff had identified that they had not been confident to ask people about their identity and characteristics. This limited the local authority’s understanding of people and demographic trends, alongside a lack of holistic assessment. The local authority developed an ‘identity and culturally informed care’ workshop which outlined the local authority’s legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 alongside the importance of this information in delivering truly strength-based practice. It had been delivered to around 250 staff at the time of our assessment and was being rolled out to all staff.

While some inclusion and accessibility arrangements were in place and used regularly, people reported communication with the local authority was challenging. People who did not use words to communicate were not always well supported and the local authority’s website had limited accessibility features to support people to use the tools available.

There were some inclusion and accessibility arrangements in place so that people could engage with the local authority in ways that worked for them. A translation and interpretation service was available through a contracted provider. This included British Sign Language (BSL). A variety of ways of using interpreters, including face to face, over the phone and online were available. Interpreters had been used to support co-production activities to include more voices from the community in shaping adult social care services. Services provided relevant information in ‘easy read’ formats to support people’s access to important documents and support, for example an ‘easy read’ consent form for assessments for people with a learning disability.

Some people and partners told us there was more that could be done to support people who did not use words to communicate. One carer, for example, told us that signs were used with their family member that they did not understand. These had been used to get the person’s view on their services, meaning that their responses had been misinterpreted. They told us they had not received any support to communicate in different ways that might improve their family member’s independence.

The local authority had identified the need to ensure its website met accessibility standards in the Equality Plan 2024-2028. The local authority’s website had limited in built accessibility features and pointed people to using their own browser tools, which were not easy to find, especially where people may be less confident with digital tools. The local authority did signpost people to an external website to search for guidance on how to use accessibility features within web browsers, though this may have deterred some people. There was no clear guidance or signposting on translation features. There was limited information available on the local authority’s website about sensory services, or provided in videos or other media which may have supported people to access the information available on the local authority's website.