Session 2: Inequalities

On Thursday 25 June, representatives from across Shetland's public sector, Community Councils and Community Development Organisations will gather at Mareel in Lerwick, for the second of seven Sessions that will shape the next Shetland Partnership Plan.

The theme is inequalities - one of the three interconnected challenges, alongside population and climate change, that the next Shetland Partnership Plan will need to address.

Shetland's headline statistics - employment rates, average wages, healthy life expectancy - paint a broadly positive picture. But look closer, and a different reality emerges for a significant number of people living and working here. This session examines the evidence behind that gap: the cost of living pressures, fuel poverty, in-work hardship, and the geographic and social factors that shape people's lives in ways that don't always show up in the numbers.

The Session will be led by Chris Sewell, Chief Inspector and Local Area Commander for Shetland, Police Scotland, and Dr Susan Laidlaw, Director of Public Health, NHS Shetland, who will present the evidence and facilitate discussion around what it means for Shetland - and what needs to change.