National Equality Framework for Business
New tool will help businesses understand equality rules and
become better equality employers.
The outcomes of a feasibility study into developing a
national equality standard for employers who are transparent about
reporting their progress on equality has been released.
This has always been about about finding a light touch
method to help business understand their equality obligations and
to encourage aspirations towards further improvements.
During 2009 GEO, in conjunction with the Equality and Human
Rights Commission (EHRC), carried out significant consultation with
a broad range of stakeholders; business and business
representatives, equality scheme providers, and procurement
officials, as well as seeking views through the Equality Bill
specific duty consultation.
National Equality Framework for Business: the proposed
model
- a focus on a voluntary
take-up and encouragement of improved practices in
the private sector
- the importance of engagement and involvement
of stakeholders in both feasibility and future development
- the need to ensure that the final product is
applicable and accessible to any size of organisation, especially
SMEs, in any sector.
The framework will;
- allow organisations to benchmark their
equality performance against a 3-point curve of legal
compliance, good practice and exemplary
practice;
- recognise continuous improvement, as opposed
to a static accreditation;
- be publicly and readily available to
business;
- be usable without requiring external
verification, although current scheme providers will be able to add
value through providing additional, specialist services, aligning
their existing standards to the framework and providing third party
verification against the framework;
- be developed (either directly or via external
contract) through wide consultation with partners and stakeholders
during production.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Much work is now needed to take this project into
its development phase. This includes talking further to business,
local government and national stakeholders, including Devolved
Administrations. The bulk of this will be around the identification
of the definitions of “good practice” and “exemplary practice”.
BACKGROUND
The concept of a national equality standard which business could
use to demonstrate their equality credentials has been a matter of
consideration for some time. Business organisations, the
Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and others explored
the feasibility of developing an equality scheme for employers who
are transparent about reporting their progress on equality.
This feasibility study was completed during 2009. The first
stage of the feasibility study was a mapping exercise undertaken by
Judith James at the University of Swansea. She mapped all known
equality related standards and products in
Towards Measures of Equality .
A second stage of the feasibility study was to assess whether an
existing product that was regionally based could be used as a
template for a new national product.
The research that assessed the pros and cons of this approach
was undertaken by Equality North East on behalf of
GEO.
During this period GEO also looked at the current position of
equality data collection and publication by the private sector. The
report by IFF,
Private Company Reporting of Workforce Diversity
Data indicated that only 8% of large companies (over
250 employees) publish workforce data and what is published is
often very basic.
The findings from the two pieces of research were fed into the
final stage of the feasibility assessment. EHRC and GEO arranged a
series of roundtable discussions (19th and 24th November 2009) with
businesses and business organisations, procurement professionals
and current equality scheme providers. The results of those round
tables can be seen here: