Diversity and equality
Whatever your job, and wherever you work, valuing diversity will have an impact on you. These pages support RCN members at work and keep you up-to-date with events and news in this field.
Congress 2008 roundup
The RCN Diversity and Equality Unit provided a record seven fringe events at RCN Congress this year. You can read the delegate reviews and access the learning materials distributed at the events on the resource page.
RCN is the gold standard
The Royal College of Nursing has been recognised for its work on valuing diversity by the Professional Associations Research Network, PARN.
A recent PARN report, "How can professional associations embed awareness and support for diversity in their organisations" highlighted the RCN as a ‘pioneer’ organisation in this field. PARN suggests that the RCN represents the gold standard in terms of increasing diversity.
Andy Friedman, Managing Director of PARN and Professor of Management and Economics at University of Bristol, said: "There are many examples of good practice out there. If more professional bodies learn from the experiences of the pioneers, huge strides will be made to diversify UK professions and professional bodies."
For more information, visit the PARN website.
A framework for a fairer future- The Equality Bill
On the 26 June 2008 Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, made a statement in the House of Commons setting out the key elements of the Equality Bill which will be announced in the Queen’s speech in November and is due for publication in Spring 2009.
The main elements of the Equality Bill are outlined below.
An Equality Duty
The document confirms that a new ‘Equality Duty’ on public bodies will replace the current race, disability and gender duties. The new streamlined duty will cover not only those three areas, but also include gender reassignment, age, sexual orientation and religion and belief.
There is desire on the part of Government to see public sector organisations reporting their progress on equality and diversity in a bid to improve transparency. The issues include:
- Gender pay
- Ethnic minority employment; and
- Disability employment
This is perhaps likely to mean that the healthcare sector will need to take proactive steps to eliminate any unlawful discrimination against both patients and employees the new grounds, and probably also take steps to promote good relations for those groups and also between the groups.
The duty is likely to have impact is in terms of requiring a more systematic and evidence based approach to all the equality areas. Engaging with issues such as the impact of religion or sexual orientation within the healthcare sector will no longer be optional or just a question of ‘good practice’, but will require a more strategic and systematic approach. Positive Action
The Bill will look to extend the scope of ‘Positive Action’ to allow organisations to take under-representation into account when selecting between two equally qualified candidates in the area of staff recruitment. This provision will be optional, not mandatory. It is likely to prove one of the most controversial elements of the new Bill.
Ending age discrimination
The Bill will contain powers to make unjustifiable age discrimination by those providing goods, facilities and services illegal.
Trade Union Equality Representatives
The Government has signaled its support for the role of trade union equality representatives by building on its previous support in terms of funding. However, the Bill does not mention placing the equality representatives role within the scope of statutory protections enjoyed by accredited trade union representatives.
Strengthening enforcement
The new Equality Bill will allow employment tribunals to make wider recommendation in discrimination cases. This is intended to ensure that the employer who is found to have discriminated can make positive changes that will have an impact on the working environment.
The Equality Bill will also look at ways to allow discrimination claims to be brought on combined multiple grounds for example, sexual orientation and race.
The question of introducing representative actions in discrimination law to allow trade unions to take cases to court on behalf of a group of people who have been discriminated against will also be considered.
Pay Audits
A great deal of joint work relating to equal pay has already been conducted, with employers and unions working together across the sector to achieve equal pay practices. Organisations will be expected to conduct equal pay job evaluation audits and publish the percentage difference in the average pay of men and women. It remains to be seen whether the percentage difference that is required to be published will include all pay, including market supplements, ex gratia payment and bonuses, and merit pay.
This requirement will prove to be interesting to the public sector given the particular difficulties over equal pay, particularly within local government.
Procurement
The Bill will also be placing a duty on some private companies in relation to procurement, and will look to private companies working with public sector organisations to produce audits showing the extent of their gender pay gap, as well as the proportions of their staff that come from ethnic minorities or who are disabled.
This information may then impact on the organisation’s decision to engage with the private provider, and feed into their approach to the new equality duty.
This requirement may have the biggest impact within commissioning services.
Next steps
A more comprehensive paper on the content of the Bill, and the Government’s response to the consultation, Discrimination Law Review; A Framework for Fairness: Proposals for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain will be published by the Government Equality Office shortly.
This will offer more clarity on details for implementation of the Bill and the time allowed for healthcare organisations to review their practice and processes.
The Diversity and Equality Unit will be reviewing this material as soon as it becomes available and will feedback any updates on this webpage.
Diversity toolkit
The RCN takes an innovative approach to sharing information. Find out more about this new resource in the Diversity toolkit section.
Diversity champions
The RCN wants to recruit 1000 activists to champion diversity and equality issues locally. As a registered champion you will receive the latest information and specialist support from the RCN diversity team.
Be the change you want to see in the world and sign up to become a diversity champion today.
Contact us
We want to hear your suggestions for ways that we can enhance the RCN’s support for you and your colleagues. You can either email diversity.team@rcn.org.uk or write to:
- Diversity and Equalities Unit
- RCN
- 20 Cavendish Square
- London
- W1G 0RN