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Snapshot of progress on the Council Plan

Equalities and Human Rights progress snapshot

Our Equalities and Human Rights 'snapshot of progress' will be updated every 6 months to provide details of our activity, as we work to deliver the Council Plan; One City, for all.

Council Plan equalities icon - yellow hands shaking illustration in the shape of a heart

For our core commitment to Equalities and Human Rights we will create opportunities for all, providing equal opportunity and balancing the human rights of everyone to ensure residents and visitors alike can benefit from the city and its strengths. We will stand up to hate and work hard to champion our communities.

Priority actions

Find out more about progress on each priority action related to Equalities and Human Rights:

Priority action: Listen and learn from those who have direct experience of poverty and caring responsibilities.

Progress by September 2025:

  • A draft 10-year Anti-Poverty Strategy - 'Tackling Poverty Today and Turning the Tide to Create Lasting Change: A Strategy and Strategic Action Plan for addressing Poverty in York 2025-2035' was released for public consultation. The development of the strategy has been informed through significant engagement with partners and a resulting action plan has now been adopted by the Council's Executive.
  • The Council formally adopted the Poverty Truth Commission's Charter for Organisational Standards - Together promoting dignity and respect for those facing poverty on 11 March 2025 and approved a proposal to publish six-monthly monitoring reports at Decision Sessions of the Executive Member for Finance, Performance, Major Projects, Human Rights, Equality and Inclusion.
  • We are working closely with Head Teachers across Multi-Academy Trusts and maintained schools to develop a schools Anti-Poverty Framework, which will help schools and their associated communities to better support children and young people living in poverty.
  • The York Community Fund, including York Hungry Minds, was officially launched on 18 July 2024. Academic research was conducted and concluded in November 2024, showing positive outcomes from pilots of the two Hungry Minds free school meals at two primary schools.
  • Over 50,000 free school meals have been served to-date, as part of the York Hungry Minds initiative. This scheme has seen three schools in York, first as a pilot and more recently as part of a planned rollout, offering free school meals to children who will benefit from a nutritious start to their day.
  • The Council's new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy now includes caring as a protected characteristic.
  • We have 'recruited' 36 Human Rights and Equity Champions from across our workforce. The champions are staff with additional responsibilities who are trained on the new Human Rights and Equity Analysis Tool and who can raise awareness on issues in this area. They will be helping their teams do impact assessments, which includes considering the impact of new policies, services and practices on all protected characteristics including carers. Champions will receive training on the barriers faced by carers and what council staff need to consider when thinking about the impact on carers.
  • Our Adult Social Care team training has a strong focus on anti-racism, which considers the barriers faced by different protected characteristics including caring.
  • We have commissioned an external provider to deliver training on the social model of disability and disability awareness to support staff and service users - this will cover the intersection of poverty and disability, caring and disability etc. The disability training will be available to all managers and will be delivered at the start of 2026.

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Priority action: Celebrate being a Human Rights City with an Anti-Racism Action Plan.

Progress by September 2025:

  • We welcomed our new Head of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion earlier this year.
  • A new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy was developed following significant public consultation, including, hundreds of survey responses, 6 focus groups with diverse communities and an open public meeting. This was approved by Executive on 15 July 2025:
  • We now have a cross-organisational network of 36 Human Rights and Equity Champions, who work to ensure that everybody in our organisation feels valued, supported and included. They have had training on the Equality Impact Assessment tool.
  • The Council continues to actively support and promote key events and dates in the city such as York Pride and Armed Forces Day. We have recently developed an EDI calendar, to allow us to mark these important annual recognition events.
  • We are currently developing staff training with strong focus on anti-racism.
  • We are implementing the recommendations from the Inclusive Equal Rights UK anti-racism strategy - including focusing on recruitment and progression of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds.

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Priority action: Promote the Good Business Charter and Living Wage Foundation for public good.

Progress by September 2025:

  • We gained re-accreditation of the Good Business Charter earlier this year. The Good Business Charter recognises organisations that share values around things like paying the real living wage, fairer hours and contracts, environmental responsibility and paying fair tax. The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority have funded the council to promote the charter.

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Priority action: Review Blue Badge accessibility by rolling back restrictions to those in place before November 2021.

Progress by September 2025:

  • Blue Badge city centre access reopened on 4 January 2024 at Goodramgate and at Blake Street on 8 March 2024, with access to Blue Badge Holders now fully rolled-back to 2019 levels.
  • Independent Access Consultants MIMA and the Centre for Applied Human Rights produced recommendations to shape a more accessible city centre, this formed part of the wider Local Transport Strategy papers that were approved by Executive on 18 July 2024: Agenda for Executive on 18 July 2024 (item 16).
  • The new Castle Gateway development has been submitted to Planning and will include a dedicated Blue Badge carpark. You can view a flythrough of the design hre. The project will be considered by our Executive in November 2025.
  • In March 2025 we completed improvements to Acomb Front Street, which included newly designed benches featuring work by local artists, a community mural, new planters, improved Blue Badge parking, wide and level pedestrian crossings, wayfinding signs and upgraded public toilets. Replacement cycle racks were installed which included a new style of cycle rack for non-standard or cargo bikes, allowing adapted cycles to be secured, accessed, and dismounted with ease. The new racks have markings to contrast with the paving, end tapping rails at ground level to assist cane users and visibility, clear adaptive and cargo bike signage, and dropped kerbs.
  • We have been working with our York Access Forum, to identify barriers to bus travel and have created a tracker for these issues. Our officers are now working with bus operators to resolve as many issues as possible. One significant issue was lack of space for wheelchair users on buses. We have recently made an arrangement with a local taxi company to provide a wheelchair accessible taxi for any wheelchair user who is refused access on a bus within York, due to lack of wheelchair space.
  • A programme of 'barrier removal' has taken place across the city. The first phase of improvements took place in spring 2025 with the adjustment or removal of barriers across twenty pathways and cycle routes.

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Priority action: Introduce family friendly foot streets and place-making that give young people confidence in their future.

Progress by September 2025:

  • Executive approved an updated 'Our City Centre' vision, which includes a "family friendly and affordable city centre" as one of its 8 key themes. See: Agenda for Executive on 12 October 2023 (Item 37).
  • In October 2024, at the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Committee Meeting, £430,000 funding from the Mayoral Investment Fund was approved to develop a public realm improvement strategy for city centre public spaces, delivery strategy and identified pipeline of capital regeneration projects. An officer delegated decision has been made which will initiate work on developing this strategy. This will include a citywide engagement process to hear from a range of voices on what they want from public spaces in York city centre.
  • We committed £500,000 of investment over the next two years to revitalise parks, play areas, and public green spaces across the city, with four of York's parks (Rowntree Park, West Bank Park, Glen Gardens and Clarence Gardens) already receiving the prestigious Green Flag Award. This sum will be enhanced by over £400,000 of developer contributions, bringing total parks and open space investment closer to £1m.
  • In July 2025, the council submitted amendments to the existing planning application for new public spaces and blue badge parking at the current Castle Car Park. and the Eye of York. The design was informed by extensive engagement with residents and stakeholders about what they want to see in the area.
  • Plans for the Castle Car Park and the Eye of York include a play area as part of the ongoing commitment to creating more family friendly spaces in the City.
  • York's Local Transport Implementation Plan was approved by Executive in November 2024 and in December 2024, Executive approved the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for York.
  • Our new dedicated team of eight Neighbourhood Caretakers have started work, to improve public spaces, support community-led action and increase pride in our city. They will be working closely with residents, volunteers, housing and communities' teams, and councillors, focussing on priorities identified through ward walkabouts, ensuring that local knowledge and community voices will shape the work being done.

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Priority action: Describe how we will help people live in the right home for their circumstance.

Progress by September 2025:

  • The specialist mental health housing and support strategy including homelessness pathways and an extension to the SASH contract was approved by Executive. See: Agenda for Executive on Thursday, 16 November 2023 (Item 13).
  • The Warm Places Grant was launched to provide warm places for people struggling to cover energy costs over winter and this will continue for winter 2025.
  • Executive agreed the sale of part of the Lowfield site for 100% affordable housing for people aged 55 and over: Update on the Housing Delivery Programme and the Disposal of Surplus Sites.
  • Executive approved specialist housing for adults with learning disabilities or autism at Lowfield Green, with 14 self-contained apartments and communal space planned: Delivering Supported Housing for Adults with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism at Lowfield Green.
  • The council has been awarded two grants, approximately £1.4 million will be used to improve the efficiency of around 140 council homes via the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund. The second grant, approximately £2 million will be used to improve the energy efficiency of around 140 homes for lower income homeowners through the Warm Homes: Local Grant Scheme.
  • We have developed a Homelessness and Rough Sleepers' Strategy to support a system wide approach that works with partners, stakeholders and citizens to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring.
  • We worked closely with health colleagues with the development of a York Frailty Hub, which was highlighted as an area of good practice in the government's 10-year plan for the NHS. The hub brings together GPs, Social Workers, Age UK, Therapists and other support services to support vulnerable people and prevent avoidable hospital admissions.
  • Domestic Abuse Resident and Tenant Policy (2025-2028): Approved in February 2025, this policy will aim to reduce the risk and consequences of domestic abuse. It outlines how the council will respond when domestic abuse affects residents, tenants, and leaseholders.
  • A £3.23 million refurbishment of 32 homes at Glen Lodge, an independent living community in Heworth is finished, making the apartments more energy-efficient, comfortable and accessible. Some of these homes are also designed to support people living with dementia.

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Priority action: Be recognised by Local Government Association (LGA) as 'excellent' in Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion, including implementing the Social Model of Disability across the Council.

Progress by September 2025:

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Priority action: Deliver good and outstanding children's services with the voice of the child heard throughout.

Progress by September 2025:

  • Children's Services has been found 'Outstanding' across all areas. We are the first Local Authority nationally under the current ILACS inspection framework to have moved from Required Improvement to Outstanding, within a single inspection cycle - a fantastic achievement and critical for supporting the city's children. The full report can be found on the Ofsted website.
  • We worked hard to embed corporate parenting, so children in care and care leavers can thrive, the 2025 inspection report stated, 'The local authority has a determined focus on its role as corporate parent. Leaders act as corporate parents, advocating and championing children and young people'.
    The Corporate Parenting Board is now co-chaired with care-experienced young people, evidencing how York values the voice of children and young people in holding leaders to account.
  • The Children and Young People's Plan has been approved, setting out our assurance and ambition plans and a city-wide strategic framework for all our partners and reflecting the key things that matter most to children, young people, parents and partners. It makes the mental and emotional wellbeing of York's young people a top priority, as these are important issues for them.
  • SEND Central is a new flagship Family Hub for young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 years and their families in York. Based at the Clifton Family Hub, everyone is welcome to pop-in, to access information, advice, be signposted to additional support, or find out more about the local offer, whether or not their child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). The new hub will support the council's SEND provision, working alongside local health partners to ensure a holistic approach to support.
  • 'Young People Belong in York' - Our Youth Strategy, was approved by Executive in November 2024. The youth strategy aims to focus on what really matters for young people in the city. It ensures that we listen to their voices, understand their needs, and work together to provide the best opportunities for them
  • Executive approved a recommendation for 'care experience' to be treated as a protected characteristic in November 2024.

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Coloured icons from the council plan representing equalities, affordability, climate and health.

The Council Plan 2023 to 2027 sets out our vision and our priorities to establish conditions that make York a healthier, fairer, more affordable, more sustainable and more accessible city where everyone feels valued.

The Council Plan; One City, for all