“In the December County Council meeting in connection with my motion “ 9.2 to fly the LGBTQ rainbow Flag over county Council building each year in LGBTQ History Month” full council were informed that it would be sent to Crwg for their consideration. Can I ask Cllr Dole what was the outcome and if not been successful the reasons for this.”
Minutes:
“In the December County Council meeting in connection with my motion “9.2 to fly the LGBTQ rainbow Flag over county Council building each year in LGBTQ History Month” full Council were informed that it would be sent to CRWG for their consideration.
Can I ask Cllr Dole what was the outcome and if not been successful the reasons for this?”
Response from Councillor Emlyn Dole, Leader of the Council:-
It should be made clear from the start that when raised in December it was agreed that the Council should continue to celebrate and support LGBTQ diversity within the community. The only point of disagreement was whether the Council should fly the LGBTQ rainbow flag over County Council buildings during LGBTQ history month.
The Council has a well establish policy for flying flags outside the main civic buildings in Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford and as the request fell outside the current policy we put to Council that the matter should be referred to the cross-party and politically balanced Constitutional Review Working Group (CRWG) for clarification. That group met on Monday of this week. I can tell you that the group met on Monday and looked closely at the existing flag flying policy and we did have a full and detailed debate on the issue. We considered your request in context of the work that the work the Authority already does to promote equality for all and the need to value our staff and residents regardless of their sexual orientation. It was recognised that the Council already has a range of equality and diversity related policies, services and networks in place to order to support all of our staff.
In 2016, Stonewall rated Carmarthenshire County Council as one of the 12 top employers in Wales for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff. The Stonewall workplace equality index place the Authority in 11th place across the whole of Wales. The index lists the best employers for promoting a fair and equitable workplace and community participation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The Authority has been a member of Stonewall for over 5 years and has taken steps to promote Stonewall’s diversity champions programme with our aim to create the right kind of environment where all staff are able to give their best and all are treated with dignity and respect.
Responding directly to your Notice of Motion the Council has also made a commitment to show solidarity with HIV+ people and those in Carmarthenshire living with AIDs by encouraging everyone to wear a red ribbon, the symbol for World AIDs day on 1st December each year as we do with the white ribbon for domestic abuse.
If I may turn specifically to your request at the LGBTQ rainbow flag be flown over County Council buildings each year during the history month. CRWG discussed the number of requests that are received each year from organisations for flags to be flown over County Council premises supporting specific causes and marking particular events. We also considered whether these flags should be flown for designated days or set periods. I’ve made it clear that since becoming Leader that the line I’ve taken consistently has been that it’s in response to a policy set by this Council and considered by CRWG and to turn down all requests that fall outside our existing protocol. We considered that fully, the decision taken on a unanimous vote by all Members of the CRWG Committee was not to fly any flags other than what is in the policy that is already in place.
Again in the context of your own very specific request, Members of the CRWG Committee were unanimously of the opinion that the policy should remain unchanged which effectively means that your request to fly the Rainbow Flag over County Council buildings each year during history month has been declined.