What is Community Inclusion and why does it matter?
The Council's overall aim and approach
What is Community Inclusion?
‘Community inclusion’ is simply a short-hand way to describe something that Fareham Borough Council has been striving to achieve for many years. It means working to ensure that everyone - regardless of who they are or their individual circumstances - is able to find out about, use and have a say about the services they need. It also means building communities which support people and that people contribute to.
Why does it matter?
The Government and many other organisations often talk about “social exclusion” or “socially excluded groups”. Social exclusion arises where people are being treated unfairly because of real or imagined differences from the majority based on poverty and/or social factors such as:
- Social class
- Ethnicity
- Gender
- Sexuality
- Religion
- Disability
- Age
What is discrimination?
This can result in discrimination. Individuals and institutions can discriminate, either deliberately or unwittingly, by treating a person less favourably than another is treated in similar circumstances - often on the basis of a single factor such as race, disability or age.
What is disadvantage?
It can also result in disadvantage. That is, people have significant difficulties in obtaining information, goods or services per se or cannot do so on the same basis as other individuals or groups because of the circumstances they find themselves in. These might include: being unemployed or on a low income, where people live, having a chronic or long-term illness (including mental illness), not having a car or being able to use public transport, poor literacy and numeracy skills, or no access to the Internet. Often, it is a combination of difficult circumstances that produces disadvantage.
The Council's overall aim and approach
Although the Council recognises the value of using the concept of social exclusion in some aspects of its work, it prefers the term “Community Inclusion” to describe its overall aim and approach. This reflects:
- The Council’s desire to develop an ongoing process that involves everyone in the local community.
- Its belief that recognising and respecting people’s differences can go hand-in-hand with promoting common values and shared interests.
- And a recognition that labelling people on the basis of a particular characteristic or circumstance can prevent their actual needs – which may be affected by many other factors - from being recognised or met.
Community inclusion is an important issue in Fareham. Although the Borough does not suffer from the levels of poverty, social deprivation and environmental degradation found in some parts of the UK, it does have significant numbers of residents (see Fareham's People (144 Kb) 
) who may experience real problems in finding out about, using and have their say about local services.
The Council also has a range of general and specific legal duties to:
- Ensure that its customers and employees are treated fairly and equally
- Promote racial equality and good race relations
- Eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion and disability
Improving Performance
Lastly, the Council understands that in order to improve its performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness it needs to ensure that services are designed to meet the needs of all its customers and that all customers can find out about those services as well as use them. This means that everyone must be able to “have their say”, which requires greater understanding of the needs of different groups of customers and the use of a range of different ways of communicating with them. It also requires a workforce with the appropriate skills and contacts with the community, something that will be easier to achieve if that workforce reflects the diversity of the local community.
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