Equality, diversity and inclusion annual report 2024

Public protection covers an array of activities within Lincolnshire. Within the area of domestic abuse victim services, drug treatment services and fraud prevention demographic data is requested from the service users to help us better understand the accessibility and equality of the services we provide, but also to help identify any potential hidden or unsupported victims.

Drug treatment services in Lincolnshire

The Lincolnshire Recovery Partnership (LRP) provides a free and confidential service for people in Lincolnshire who want support for issues related to their drug or alcohol use. This includes a dedicated young people’s service, Horizon, offering support, information and advice about drugs and alcohol.

The following data shows the ethnicity of people being supported by the service including those where the support started in the previous year. The sexual orientation and religion information is of new people who accessed the service in the year 2023 to 2024.

White

Asian and Asian British

Black and Black British

Mixed ethnicity

Total

The highest proportion of people accessing the service are of white British ethnicity (88.5%) which is slightly lower than the 2021 census Lincolnshire population percentage (89.2%).

White other is slightly lower at 5.8% than the 2021 Census population percentage (6.7%). The total percentage of people accessing the service from Asian, Black, mixed and other ethnic backgrounds is 3.7% which is also below the 2021 census (4.1%).

The highest proportion of individuals in service are Heterosexual at 89.9%. This is in line with the 2021 Census data of 89.58% stating they are heterosexual.

The highest proportion of individuals accessing services have no religious belief (65.8%).

The LRP are aware that some groups may not be engaging with services so have put in place the following:

• a Polish group running in Boston
• an Eastern European worker for the south of the county
• translated leaflets, and psychosocial and harm reduction interventions translated to a range of different languages
• new buildings with neurodiversity in mind. Turning Point has an autism standards document that we can use for a self-assessment
• a range of staff that speak different languages

Domestic abuse support

EDAN Lincs is a registered charity commissioned by us. It delivers the Lincolnshire Domestic Abuse Specialist Service (LDASS) which provides support and assistance to anyone suffering or fleeing from domestic abuse in Lincolnshire. The following data shows the age, ethnicity and gender of people referred to the service.

There has been a significant increase of people being referred into service with 2022 to 2023 referrals 849 and 2023 to 2024 at 1,986.

LDASS referrals by age

The highest proportion of people who are referred for support from the domestic abuse service are aged between 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 years old. This is in line with last year’s data, however, the 35 to 44-year-old category is now the top age range that was referred where it was the 25 to 34 age range in the previous year. 

LDASS referrals by gender

There has been an increase in the percentage of male victims referred to service from 8.5% last year to 11.7% this year. This demonstrates progress on the service ambition to ensure male victims are being referred for support, understand and receive the support available.

LDASS referrals by ethnicity compared to 2021 census data for Lincolnshire

Following last year’s data presentation and reviewing domestic abuse data it was identified that the volume of referrals for white other and Asian, Black, Mixed or other ethnic group was not in line with domestic abuse reports. As a result, LCC commissioned a new victim service including an outreach team targeting those hard-to-reach groups with an ambition of increase the referrals and support.

The outreach initiative appears to have been successful in the first year with an increase in referrals within ethnicity categories from 10.6% to 14.8% for white other and 2.9% to 4.5% for Asian, Black and mixed ethnicity.  Both figures are higher than the ethnicity Census data of 6.7% for white other and 4.1%  for Asian, Black and mixed ethnicity.

Scams intervention and prevention

The scams intervention and prevention services offered by LCC provide holistic support to individuals who have experienced fraud or who are at risk of fraud. Referrals are received from a number of sources including Lincolnshire Police, Lincolnshire Trading Standards and Adult Safeguarding. Additionally, some individuals have made self-referrals.

This is the first time we have a full year of data as collection started in September 2022. A total of 89 people were supported by the service as potential victims of scams in the year from April 2023 to March 2024.

Potential scam victims by gender

As with the previous year there was almost an equal split between male and female potential victims and those at risk of fraud.

Potential scam victims by health condition

Of those that chose to disclose, 39 people disclosed health conditions (some more than one). These conditions could increase their risk of being a victim of fraud.

Potential scam victims by age

The oldest individual was 95 years old and the youngest individual was 32. 72% of people supported were over 70. The data also showed that 48 (53.9%) people supported live alone.