There are not many organisational Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statements that do not include the words ‘ensuring or providing opportunity’ or perhaps wording similar to the one I read recently ‘we strive to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity’, but as an organisation are these words actionable? are they just intent? Or do we know as organisations that we are delivering on a bold statement that will be read by every future job candidate, member of our staff, client or people we provide a service for?
We cannot rely on simply publishing a statement and believe that staff or managers will simply deliver on the commitment, instead we have to ask ourselves: if people did reach their full potential what would that look like and if we used the word ‘ensure’ how would we know we were delivering on it. EDI statements and policies often have bold and valued statements and if delivered would demonstrate the values of the Public Sector Equality Duty but often these statements rest on intent instead of organisations asking themselves ‘how’ are we delivering on this?
Whilst the answer might lie in training and awareness or the demonstration of good practice we cannot overlook or detach the power of policy, working practice and the way we make decisions has on people’s lives, futures and opportunities. We need therefore to ensure that our policies, practices and strategies need to ask how does this demonstrate our organisations values in respect of equity, diversity and inclusion? how is this helping to ensure opportunity? And how are we actioning change?
Equality Impact Assessments completed well could play a fundamental part of delivering on a bold ambition to provide opportunity for everyone, however time and time again we see the forms used only to identify risk of discrimination and mitigate against them instead of focusing on opportunity. Maybe in reality it’s easier to be reactive than proactive, perhaps that’s because often Equality Impact Assessment forms lead people to think this way, however the Public Sector Equality Duty was never meant to be interpreted like this, it was instead designed for the first time placing an obligation on those carrying out public functions to positively promote equality, not merely to avoid discrimination. In our EIA sessions we discuss the point of how we can improve the process of EIA’s so that they deliver on all of the three areas of the duty and not one or two.
- prevent unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other behaviour that is not allowed under the act
- provide equal opportunities for people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
- promote good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
It’s possible that organisations find the first element of the duty easier to consider as its often more obvious, whereas providing equal opportunities for people needs time to reflect and consider how we can improve our practices. The Equality Act provides us with some explanation for having due regard to equal opportunities in saying it involves in particular, having due regard to the need to:
- Take steps to meet the needs of people with certain protected characteristics where these are different from the needs of other people.
- Encourage people with certain protected characteristics to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low.
In our EDUK Equality Impact Assessment training we discuss the importance of consciously seeking to understand how to move negatives to neutral but most important neutrals to positives, this could even be linked to your own EDI Strategy, i.e. stating ‘You should consider in any of the areas above how you can move a negative to a neutral/ a neutral to a positive in order to further the organisations vision to ‘‘ensure that everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity’,’ As one person said recently in a course when asked what learning they were taking from it “It is not just about prevent! Thank you for a good session”
So, it’s time to think about how effective your Equality Impact Assessments are in improving opportunity in your organisation, completed well they move your own EDI objectives from intent to action, creating a healthy and fairer society for all.