Leadership commitment and governance

Our councillors and senior leaders will be responsible for demonstrating leadership and commitment to applying these Social Equity Principles across all decisions relating to council services facilities budgets and planning approvals.

The responsibility to apply and uphold the Social Equity Framework lies with all directorates. In the initial phases of rolling - out and implementing the Social Equity Framework the Community Life directorate will take stewardship of the Social Equity Principles enablers and future action plans continuing to drive our organisation towards achieving strong community social equity outcomes.

Furthermore our Strategy People and Performance directorate will work to ensure that the Social Equity Principles and enablers are ingrained in the DNA of the organisation by incorporating them into business plans to ensure that they are accurately tracked and measured internally and that their importance and impact is shared more broadly with our community.

Our partnership approach to social equity

Guided by our Social Equity Principles and driven by community need we will work with existing advisory committees priority groups and partners as well as exploring new partnerships to achieve our desired community objectives.

We will undertake early engagement with community priority groups and partners to ensure deliberative and meaningful engagement when considering services and facilities for those with the greatest need and those most affected by our decisions.

Social equity outcomes for the Geelong community

Successful implementation of the framework and guiding principles will be evidenced by the delivery of a range of outcomes over time for our community including:

1. Positive shifts in the indices of disadvantage (e.g. Socio - Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA)) that reflect more equitable resource allocation and economic changes.
2. Positive shifts in community health and wellbeing indexes and data.
3. Increased number of community - based partnerships which focus on progressing social equity across our municipality.
4. Increased involvement and engagement from priority groups on community issues that affect them.
5. Increase among priority groups in awareness attendance and use of services programs and events across our city.
6. Reduced incidence prevalence and impacts of justice related matters and community safety issues such as family violence.

Measurement program

Our City will track these outcomes and monitor our social equity performance through our existing Our Community Plan 2021 - 2025 and sustainability reporting.

Our Community Plan 2021 - 2025 reporting

The annual report will provide an end - of - year overview of our performance including how we are tracking against social equity aligned actions and indicators.

Sustainability performance

We will report our sustainability performance annually against the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and align our activities with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.