How we promote equality and diversity

Equality and diversity in Belfast

Belfast is a vibrant city with a diverse population. Our residents are different in ethnicity, age, gender, religious belief, political opinion and whether they have a disability or don’t have a disability. We promote and must uphold equality and diversity in how we plan, offer and provide our services.

Disability duties

As a public authority, we’re responsible for providing certain services to residents in Belfast. When exercising our council functions, developing policies, practices and procedures, we have disability duties and should:

• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• encourage disabled people’s participation in public life

Our Disability Action Plan explains different activities we carry out to promote positive attitudes towards people with disabilities and encourage their participation in public life.

To read our Disability Action Plan, go to:

• Disability strategy and action plan

To read more about our disability duties, go to:

• Disability duties for public authorities

Section 75 duties

Through our Section 75 duties, we promote equality and good relations in policy-making, policy implementation, policy review and service delivery. To demonstrate what we’re doing for Section 75 groups, we have an equality scheme and equality action plans.  We also publish equality impact assessment reports.
For more information on Section 75 duties, go to:

• Section 75 duties in Northern Ireland

Rural needs

We are the local council for three rural areas near Belfast, in Edenderry, Hannahstown and Loughview. When developing policies we must consider the social and economic needs of people in these rural areas, through policy screenings.

This screening process identifies how a policy could affect people’s social and economic needs in these rural areas. For each proposed policy, we carry out a rural needs impact assessment and publish a screening report. 

To read more information on how local councils should consider rural needs in Northern Ireland, go to:

• Guide to Rural Needs Act

Language strategy for Belfast

When providing our services in Belfast, we also need to consider demand for information in languages other than English.  Our language strategy explains how we’re engaging with language communities to address language barriers, through the development and integration of different languages into civic life.

• Read more about our Language Strategy