Equality Objectives Annual Report 2025-26
Pages in Equality Objectives Annual Report 2025-26
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Equality Objective 1: Plan and shape services to support equality using data and local insights
- 3. You are here: Equality Objective 2: Support strong, inclusive communities
- 4. Equality Objective 3: Provide accessible information and services
- 5. Equality Objective 4: Embrace equality and inclusion as an employer
3. Equality Objective 2: Support strong, inclusive communities
Support for strong, inclusive communities features within objective 1.2.1 of the Corporate Plan, and much of the information presented there is also applicable to this objective.
Collaboration between Community Partnership teams, partner organisations, residents and wider council services helps to build connections within and between communities, and creating an inclusive environment.
The Council works with and supports groups which represent smaller communities and those with particular needs or interests. This can help ensure that they aren’t overlooked, disregarded, or misrepresented, and that residents can meet and understand the perspective of others.
Examples of groups the Council has engaged with in the past year include the YMCA, the Asian Social Group, the Include Choir, and Sight for Surrey.
As identified earlier in this report, the Council’s Community Centres also help to strengthen and connect communities, through providing spaces for people to be and facilities for smaller groups to hire and use. New activities during 2025/26 which support inclusion, as mentioned elsewhere in the report including the Catty Café, SEN Youth Group, and Forget Me Not Café dementia friendly group.
Resident sentiment on community inclusion is positive overall, and has improved since 2025, but the most recent residents’ survey did identify an increasing number of comments with negative perspectives on immigrants and ethnic minority groups, particularly in Horley. This likely corresponds with some modest protest activity during the year, and local instances of more nationalist behaviour. The Council’s teams, including Community Development, continue to engage across the community in Horley to support community cohesion.