Our One County One Team, Fairness and Respect Strategy 2012 - 2017 was approved by the council’s Cabinet on 27 March 2012. It sets out our 11 priorities for meeting the needs of Surrey’s most vulnerable residents and the ways in which we will promote respect.

Our priorities are:

• Invest in our support to schools to further the attainment of pupils, especially those from vulnerable groups.
• Provide targeted support to low-income families to increase access to employment, training and support networks.
• Continue to support older people, the physically disabled and those with learning-disabilities to live independently.
• Reduce differences in life expectancy and healthy-life expectancy between communities.
• Support carers to balance their caring role and maintain their independence and quality of life.
• Work with public, private and third sector partners to increase employment and training opportunities for young people (people aged 19 – 25).
• Increase volunteering rates across all of Surrey’s communities.
• Reduce instances of domestic abuse through strong leadership and partnership working.
• Ensure rural communities have access to services through new technologies.
• Increase our understanding of the needs and aspirations of Surrey’s residents and their differing experiences of council services.
• Surrey attracts, recruits and retains the best, highly-skilled and high-performing workforce, which reflects the diversity of the county.

The priorities contained within the One County One Team, Fairness and Respect Strategy 2012 - 2017 also enable us to meet the requirements of the public sector equality duty to publish specific equalities objectives for the organisation. We published our priorities in advance of the deadline of 6 April 2012.

Our priorities were identified by undertaking detailed analysis of the needs of residents, reviewing the findings of recent consultations with the public and gathering the views of partner organisations.

To ensure that we are delivering our priorities for fairness and respect, the council will provide updates on the progress it is making through its quarterly performance reports that are considered by Cabinet. These will be available on the committee papers pages once published.