So what's it all about, then?

There's nothing like taking the issues to the people, and as far as we can see, the equality scheme consultation announced by Boston Borough Council just over a month ago is precisely that - nothing like taking the issues to the people.
We wonder exactly how many punters have taken the trouble to respond, and of those who tried, how many of them failed because some of the questions were incomprehensible.
The borough mused: "We need your views to help us develop our equality and diversity priorities. We need your views on how accessible our services are and how we can be more inclusive. We want to make sure that our services meet the needs of all our customers, both now and into the future and would like to understand the views, experiences and perspectives from as many groups (sic)."
The list of groups whose input was requested comprised people from different racial or ethnic backgrounds, different nationalities, men and women, people with a disability, people practising different religions or beliefs, people from rural areas, of different sexual orientation, transgender people, older people, and younger people."
The list alone highlights the argument we have made against catch-all surveys such as these ... the big point being "who isn't included?"
And if, put simply, "equal" means the same and "diverse" means different, what in earth is an equality and diversity priority?
Be that as it may, the questions go on to ask about general views and comments on council services and the improvements that could be made to improve access to and quality of them.
"Reporting, dealing with and eliminating harassment, hate crime and violence" includes possible issues such as "improving reporting and dealing with homophobic and racist hate crime, improving reporting and dealing with hate crime against those with a disability, domestic violence and abuse. Working pro-actively to reduce forced marriages, sexual violence and rape. Eliminating harassment in the workplace."
Without doubt, some of these crimes occur in Boston, but based on what we see from the court pages in very small amounts, and the problem with serving up issues on survey like this is that it tends to create complaints where no real issues exist.
And, we wonder, how many forced marriages are there each year in the borough?
Then there's the whole issue of understanding.
Whilst the borough offers translations of its webpages in a variety of languages, it tends not to bother about making things clear in English.
For instance, we are told that possible issues which could be included to enhance "equalities stakeholder involvement" include: "Capacity building. Involvement in planning, reviewing, procuring and evaluation. Commission involvement. Pro-active work to communicate with more excluded communities. Consultation with children and young people. Developing survey arrangements with individuals and voluntary sector memberships (to measure some scheme outcomes.)"
That's ok then.
And if you want to improve procurement and commissioning of services, consider possible issues such as "developing the provider market to include agencies run by equalities communities. Ensure contracts include equalities requirements and performance against such requirements is monitored with appropriate sanctions."
C'mon, ignoring the fact that surveys like these are by and large unnecessary, because anyone with an issue to raise will take it up without being asked, they cost money - which is wasted when the folk at Worst Street can't take the trouble to translate from councilspeak into common English.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.