We believe that equality and diversity are central to our objectives and our cultural relations role and we are especially conscious of the fact that effective partnership relationships require a shared commitment to equality of opportunity and valuing and managing diversity. Our Equal Opportunities Policy helps to ensure that there is no unjustified discrimination in the recruitment, retention, training and development of staff on the basis of gender including transgender, marital status, sexual identity, religion and belief, political opinion, race, work pattern, age, disability or HIV/AIDS status, socio-economic background, spent convictions, trade union activity or membership, on the basis of having or not having dependants, or any other irrelevant grounds. We work to a social model of disability, which focuses on the removal of barriers to people with disabilities. We progress our Equal Opportunities Policy through our Diversity Strategy.