A plan to entirely axe Warwickshire County Council's funding of a county-wide equalities service is to be set in motion next month.

A public consultation is being launched on pulling the £135,000-per-year county contribution to the charity EQuIP – Warwickshire's Equality and Inclusion Partnership.

It was known as the Warwickshire Race Equality Partnership before expanding to tackle all forms of discrimination in 2017.

EQuIP provides discrimination and hate crime support, equalities training and guidance and aids engagement and community cohesion, services that include support to community groups, faith groups, businesses, schools and public sector organisations.

Data published on the Charity Commission website shows that the county council funding made up more than 60 per cent of EQuIP's income in the financial year 2024-25 – a total of £56,190 came from three government grants.

Although the council funding is in place until March 2027, the contract contains a clause that allows it to be withdrawn with three months' notice.

The county council's report acknowledges that EQuIP "provides a mechanism" that supports its legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

It adds that "the engagement and community cohesion element of the service" helps to ensure that "minority voices (are) heard by council decision makers" in line with the Act.

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Despite those obligations, EQuIP is a discretionary – optional – service with the report highlighting "the pressing need to identify savings" and that such projects are "not a priority for the council" as the thinking behind the proposed cut.

A list of risks and implications follows, including the potential reduction in support for community safety and cohesion, the wider impact on trust and confidence in the council among the voluntary and community sector, the "foreseeable equalities impacts" on vulnerable people as well as the risk to the council's compliance with the law.

This section of the report concludes: "A key part of the consultation will be to explore these risks and how they might be avoided or mitigated."

Portfolio holder for customer and localities Cllr Mike Bannister is set to sign off an eight-week public consultation at Friday's (May 22, noon) public-facing decision making session at Shire Hall, Warwick. Provided he does, the consultation is scheduled to begin at some point in June.

It is an idea that has been in the pipeline for some time, though, with Warwickshire County Council's Liberal Democrat opposition highlighting that this consultation had been due for sign-off in March and again in April, prior to the local elections at Rugby Borough Council and Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council.

Cllr Bannister told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that "it was categorically not put back because of the elections".

"The reality was simply administrative," he said.

"The volume of work that had to be put in, it took up a lot of officer time at a time when there were a lot of things on the council's plate. There was no political motive to it whatsoever."

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He felt it would be inappropriate to add much to the council's report prior to the consultation taking place.

"We are going out to full consultation. Quite rightly, that is something we want to view the results of before making any decision," he added.

If signed off, the eight-week consultation will be followed by eight weeks of analysis.

That then gets reported back to the county's cabinet – the Reform UK panel of councillors in charge of major service areas – to inform its decision, one that the report says "is expected to be made before the end of 2026".