Slide 1: Title slide

Hello, my name is Ila Chandavarkar from the Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum or CECF. I’m with my colleague, Louise Tan, who is the Development Officer for CECF. We are a charity based in Cambridge working primarily in the field of race equality.

In this short presentation, we will be looking at tips to develop good Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion practices, which we’ll refer to as EDI.

We’ll look at how to develop the right tools to ensure effective reach and engagement with all people with characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act, which makes discrimination against these individuals or groups illegal. Discrimination is illegal, for example, on the grounds of age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, etc.

This is one of 3 recordings we have made. Part 1 is about Driving Change: by Addressing Concerns to Foster Good EDI Practice in Your Organisation. Part 2 is divided into guidance for smaller and then for larger organisations, looking at providing helpful tools and templates. This recording is for small organisations with very few or no staff.

Slide 2: Overview

This presentation will look at reasons to build good EDI practice in terms of the benefits this brings to organisations. It will then suggest some ideas for how to achieve this, suggesting ways to build effective EDI policy or guidance, as well as how you implement EDI goals through planning and action plans. At the end of the accompanying transcript, there will also be guidance links to useful resources.

Slide 3: Benefits of EDI

For more information on the benefits of EDI, please see our part 1 recording Driving Change: Addressing Concerns to Foster Good EDI Practices in Your Organisation. The link to this is included in the guidance links at the end of the transcript.

In summary, implementing good EDI practices will contribute to the following benefits:

• Wider and more effective organisational reach
• Meeting legal requirements
• Better retention of staff and volunteers
• Improved productivity
• Higher client satisfaction
• Greater creativity and innovation
• Better problem solving

Slide 4: Steps to develop good EDI practice

Here are some steps to develop good EDI practice:

Step 1

Get buy-in by involving everyone in the organisation to understand what is needed

Step 2

Develop a policy which is guidance on how the organisation will carry out EDI

Step 3

Develop a strategy, which basically says what you will do to improve EDI practice by finding the gaps in your organisation and prioritising areas to address. For each priority area, you will need to decide what data you need to collect and how.

This usually involves:

• Deciding what data you need to collect and how
• Analysing the data to see where you need to take action
• Developing an action plan and timetable
• Implement this

Step 4

Finally, review actions and lessons learned.

Slide 5: What is ‘policy’ and how does it help?

An EDI policy is a key tool in ensuring EDI. A policy gives guidance by spelling out how and what the organisation will do to achieve its EDI goals and thereby helps to provide clarity.

EDI policy should be appropriate to the size and capacity of the organisation to keep it effective and achievable. For smaller groups, the policy could be a single page to cover a general overview of how the organisation ensures EDI. We will provide links to example EDI policies for small organisations in the guidance links at the end.

We will now look at what you can put in an EDI policy.

Slide 6: EDI Policy Content

This is a list of items a standard EDI policy could contain and we are going to take you through each one in more detail in the next few slides. These are:

• A Statement of Intent (an SoI)
• A list of key aims
• Roles and responsibilities
• A Code of Conduct
• A Code of Practice and how your organisation will deal with complaints
• Review of the policy

There is a link to guidance from the Resource Centre in the transcript, which provides more information on policy content, including what is meant by reviewing your policy.

Slide 7: Statement of Intent (SoI)

An organisation’s Statement of Intent (SoI) describes:

• why the organisation is committed to EDI
• how EDI is linked to the organisation’s purpose
• the organisation’s recognition of discrimination
• organisational values and commitment to eliminate discrimination in their work.

To develop the link between organisation purpose and policy, we would recommend that you look at the example policy of Merry Street Tenants’ Association. This example policy is part of the Resources Centre guidance to help small groups develop EDI policy. A link to this is in the guidance links at the end of the transcript.

A Statement of Intent is usually displayed publicly and may list a contact for people to find out more about the organisation’s EDI policy and practice.

Slide 8: Example of EDI Aims

Here are some examples of EDI aims. These are what you aspire to achieve.

The Charity aims to:

• Provide services that are accessible, according to the need
• Promote equality of opportunity and diversity in employment, volunteering and development
• Create effective partnerships with all in our community

These aims are for a small organisation and have been taken from the Small Charity Support guidance and example policy. A link to this is in the guidance links at the end of the transcript.

Slide 9: Example Roles and Responsibilities

Here is an example of roles and responsibilities for an organisation.

The Board of Trustees are responsible for ensuring that the policy is fit for purpose for the organisation and that resources, support and leadership are provided for policy action. The Chair will ensure that these responsibilities are carried out. If there is a staff member, they are responsible for ensuring EDI in day-to-day activities. Otherwise, a named Trustee could be given this role.

Any person can report discrimination to the Chair or a staff member (if there is one). The Chair or staff member will look into the matter and report on findings to both the person who has raised the concern and the Board. The normal practice is usually to go to a staff member, if there is one, or go to the Chair if there are no staff.

It is important that the policy states that everyone involved in running the organisation has the responsibility to promote equality and to ensure there is no discrimination, regardless of whether their role is linked with particular, defined responsibilities around EDI or not.

Slide 10: Example Code of Conduct

A Code of Conduct is the behaviour that is expected in the group. For example, treating everyone with respect, not making offensive jokes, not personalising a disagreement and if you challenge inappropriate behaviour do it respectfully.

Slide 11: Example Code of Practice

An EDI Code of Practice is the practical steps you put in place to ensure EDI is present in all that you do. Sometimes it is referred to as standards for the organisation. Here is an example, from the Resources Centre model policy from the Hindu Elders’ Group provided as part of its guidance.

These are the main processes the Group follows:

• Being open and welcoming to all members
• Ensuring accessible meetings and events
• Providing interpreters
• Organising EDI training
• Ensuring EDI policy is understood by all and all commit to it.

There is a little more detail in the model. For example, how they make meetings accessible by providing transport, meeting in accessible premises, providing sign language interpreters when necessary and producing information in large print. A key part of any Code of Practice is what you have in place if there is a breach of equality and inclusion and how you deal with complaints.

In the case of the Hindu Elders’ Group, they ask that people report discrimination to the coordinator of the group and if the coordinator is unable to resolve this, the matter will be referred to the management committee. The link to this policy and Resources Centre guidance is in the guidance links at the end of the transcript.

Slide 12: EDI Strategy

Strategy here simply means how you plan to achieve your EDI aims, and the steps you will take. This will broadly involve looking at where your organisation is now in terms of meeting EDI aims and identifying areas for improvement.

This is the first stage of planning. You then prioritise the areas you wish to tackle and detail the steps you need to address these priority areas.

You may find it helpful to get advice on some areas of improvement. For example, how to reach an underrepresented group by contacting an organisation that works with this group.

Slide 13: Example EDI Strategy

Here is an example of an EDI Strategy.

Review your current status, that is where your organisation is now. For example, in August 2024:

You identify:

• That your organisation has an EDI policy, produced in 2023 and is committed to implementing EDI. However, no further measures have taken place.

After reviewing this, you identify the following priority areas for improvement:

• Awareness & training – Provide group training sessions for all staff on key aspects of EDI on an annual basis
• Inclusive facilities – review the accessibility of your premises and facilities and take action to improve access
• Increase representation – for example, this could be increasing the number of young people in the organisation

These are just some ideas you may consider. Please remember any action you choose should be practical for your group to deliver. You may choose just one item a year to focus on, such as accessibility for example.

To move forward with action, we recommend that you plan and timetable this through an annual Action Plan.

Slide 14: Action Plan

An Action Plan helps you implement the changes you have identified in an organised way. This is a
basic template for an Action Plan.