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Advisory Friends
 We are pleased to announce that the IEDP has a new Advisory Friend, making a total of seven. Pamela Permalloo-Bass works as Equality Diversity and Inclusion manager for the NHS, and is also a specialist advisor for the Care Quality Commission. Further information about Pamela can be found on our website.
We have also introduced a 'News from Advisory Friends' feature in this website. So see below.for interesting work IEDP advisory friends have been involved with recently, or ideas that they have come across that they feel are worth spreading.
IEDP accreditation dates
If you join the IEDP, or are already a member, you can apply for our accreditation process. We are currently in the middle of our third round of the year, but you have plenty of time to apply for the fourth and final cohort as the closing date for expressions of interest is 30 September 2016. Your application would need to be confirmed (and the fee paid) by 14 October 2016 and the deadline for the submission of your portfolio would be 25 November 2016. Further details on the accreditation page of our website
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Dads for transgender equality
 This lovely video from Pink News was highlighted by the It Gets Better Project. It features dads talking about their trans children. Click on the photo for the YouTube link.
Understanding the spectrum
Katrice Horsley drew our attention to this comic strip by Rebecca Burgess, which redesigns the autistic spectrum to help crush stereotypes. Published on the Mighty website. Click on the photo to see the comic strip
Muslim life in harmony
 Hounslow Language Service tweeted about this work by photographer Peter Sanders on Muslims in the UK. A series of beautiful photos with a little bit of information about the people in each one. Click on the photo for more information.
Things people with Down's syndrome are tired of hearing 
Zoe Nosworthy recommended this BBC3 video of people with Down's syndrome talking about patronising and annoying comments that people often make to them. Click on the photo for the YouTube link.
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'Making Equality Work' now available free
 To celebrate the third anniversary of publishing their popular textbook on effective E&D policymaking, 'Making Equality Work', the authors Shahnaz Ali OBE, Christine Burns MBE and Loren Grant have decided to make the book FREE henceforth. It can be obtained at all popular eBook stores online, including iBooks, the Kobo store and the Barnes and Noble 'Nook' store. The price has also been permanently reduced to 99 pence in Amazon’s Kindle bookstore. Making Equality Work examines in detail the history of how today’s diverse strands of equality provisions came about. It also provides a detailed case study based on the authors’ own groundbreaking work within the NHS.
To obtain Making Equality Work simply go to the eBook store where you would normally obtain titles for your reader and search for the book by name. If you don’t own an eBook reader then there are free apps that you can download for whichever tablet or phone or laptop/PC you own. If you don’t own a device at all then visit read.amazon.com on any work or library PC, where you can obtain and read eBooks online without downloading or installing anything.
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Demystifying Diversity
By Gamiel Yafai
More so than ever in the history of humanity we are now very much a part of the global village and yet still trying to learn what that means in terms of maximising performance, productivity and profits. In the book ‘Demystifying Diversity’ which I co-wrote with Jiten Patel, we take a very practical approach to these fundamental principles whilst suggesting, not only what needs to happen but also why diversity dilemmas tend to come about in the first place. Aristotle said, ‘seek first to know thyself’, and we have chosen to use this principle as a guiding light to navigate through the fog of diversity.
Governments have been seeking to address discrimination since the early 1970’s in the UK, with the passing of the Equal Pay Act, and culminating in the Equality Act 2010, which itself has been subject to a period of revision since it was passed. However, circumstances seem to change far more quickly than the law can be updated; people are living longer, workforce profiles are changing more rapidly than previously and, at times, the person feeling excluded is the average white male or as David Cameron might say ‘white working class young men.’ Our book therefore makes the ethical and business case for inclusion; valuing everybody. There is a requirement to understand how we can get the best out of people in an environment where organisations cannot simply resolve issues by throwing vast sums of money at them or mere compliance with the Law. This requires people to work within a greater understanding of the transience of Diversity.
This transience involves all people, regardless of the various characteristics that present themselves from time to time. The book takes the reader by the hand to lead them through what we term transience, helping them to understand the how the core variants, beliefs, values and attitudes, can sometimes create conflict simply through a lack of awareness and understanding. This lack often manifests in the form of grievances, complaints and disciplinary processes involving accusations and claims of inappropriate behaviour and discrimination. One major contention of the book is that the vast majority of us do not intend to be discriminatory or racist and we try to help the reader to move effectively beyond equality legislation to a recognition of diversity and a practical application of inclusion.
 The book starts with a statement showing an ordinary person in court, trying to defend himself for, seemingly, political correctness gone mad. It then proceeds as a street map of how to navigate through Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. These three principles are spoken about all the time, often with confused understanding at best. This book serves to remove the fog that surrounds diversity and reminds the reader that it really is not rocket science. In writing the book, we have tried to give a new reasoned understanding to the reader about how the principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are things we, as individuals, work with every day both in a work context, and in a consumer/social context; it brings about a realism and pragmatic approach to effectively handling varying business and other situations that require each of us to work with a diverse range of people and situations.
Further the book sets out a new vision of the business case for diversity which, contrary to previous thinking in the 90’s and early 2000’s, attaches to the value that organisations place on its ‘most valuable asset’, people. In this model, bottom line profits are just one component of the business case and now include the ethical, moral and legal imperatives which apply to all sectors of the economy; public, private and third sectors.
Finally, the book starts applying these guiding principles into all arenas of business management and customer service, making it ideal for line managers, HR partners, trainers and equality and diversity professionals. Our reviewers, who themselves are experts in the field, felt that this book was an essential for everybody.
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Action against Hate
We are grateful to the Race Equality Foundation for permission to publish this article which is based on their press release, written on behalf of the Coalition of Racial Equality Organisations (CORE).
The Government’s new hate crime action plan, Action against Hate, was published on 26 July 2016. The four-year plan is due to run from 2016 until 2020. Actions are set out in relation to five areas:
1) preventing hate crime by challenging the beliefs and attitudes that can underlie such crimes;
2) responding to hate crime;
3) increasing the reporting of hate crime;
4) improving support for victims of hate crime;
5) building our understanding of hate crimes and improving the data.
The plan also commits the Government to ‘working in partnership with communities’ and ‘joining up work across a hate crime strands to ensure that best practice in tackling hate crime is understood and drawn upon in all’ its work.
 The Home Office’s announcement that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary will be asked to assess the way police respond to all forms of hate crime is a welcome development. However, members of CORE are concerned that Action against Hate contains serious flaws because there has been inadequate consultation.
In a press release written at the end of July, CORE called on the Home Secretary and the Home Office to enter into discussions with CORE, Racial Equality Councils, those tackling race and /or religious hatred, national faith bodies, the Criminal Justice family, the Local Government Association, Community Safety Partnerships and others to ensure that the new plan is developed into an effective, properly funded national strategy to combat race and religious hate crime and foster good community relations.
Action against Hate: key flaws, omissions and what is needed
- The strategy must recognise that Britain’s long established black and minority ethnic communities as well as newer migrants from the EU and elsewhere have faced rising race hate crime.
- The new plan, like the previous plan, fails to effectively recognise or address rising race hate crime, the root causes and the relationship between racially and religiously motivated hate crimes
- The new strategy must address the recommendations made by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to undertake a ‘full-scale review of Britain’s hate crime laws and strategies; carry out a full-scale review of the operation and effectiveness of the sentencing for hate crimes in England and Wales, including the ability to increase sentencing for crimes motivated by hate; provide stronger evidence to prove their hate crime strategies are working; work with criminal justice agencies to understand what drives perpetrators to commit hate crime and to use that evidence to develop new preventative measures.
- The plan must be developed in a strategy informed by an analysis of: the causes of rising race and religious hate crime; how the Public Sector Equality Duty can be used to reduce such hate crime and; what forms of intervention reduce the incidence of race and religious hate crime.
- The new strategy must ensure that data on the ethnicity of perpetrators and victims of race hate crime are published by the CPS, police forces and the Home Office. In addition, consideration must be given on how to record nationality to tackle race hate crime directed towards EU or other migrants.
- Police referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for charging in relation to racially and religiously aggravated crime fell in 2014/15 and 2015/16 whilst reported race hate crimes have increased year-on-year for the last three years. Moreover, the number of prosecutions has not increased to keep pace with this rise in reported race hate crimes.
- We need a strategic framework that provides effective guidance to Police and Crime Commissioners and police forces so that progress can be measured with respect to referrals to the CPS.
A detailed report ‘Calling for a national strategy to address rising race and religious hate crime in England and Wales’, written by Leander Neckles for Race Equality Foundation, can be found on the members’ area of the IEDP website.
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Sound statistics
This is our feature giving up-to-date statistics that Equality and Diversity professionals may find useful to their work, particularly in training and campaigning. This issue’s statistics have been compiled by Ruth Wilson from the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report Healing a divided Britain, which was published in the middle of August.
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Ethnic diversity in the UK
- 14% of the UK population is from an ethnic minority background
- People from ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty (35.7% as compared to 17.2%)
- People from ethnic minorities are more likely to be living in substandard accommodation. 30.9% of Pakistani / Bangladeshi heritage people live in overcrowded conditions as compared to 8.3% of White people.
Employment
- Unemployment rates are significantly higher for ethnic minorities at 12.9% compared with 6.3 % for White people
- Black workers with degrees earn 23.1% less on average than White workers with degrees
- Black people who leave school with A-levels typically get paid 14.3% less than their White peers
Health
- In the UK Black African mothers are four times as likely to die during or following childbirth higher than White mothers
- There is a significant disproportionate number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds detained under mental health legislation in hospitals in England and Wales – Black African women were seven times more likely to be detained than White British women.
One to know about
Brexit
- According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, reports of hate crime to its online reporting site, True Vision, have risen 57% in the aftermath of the EU referendum vote
One to think about
Education
- Just 6% of Black school leavers attended a Russell Group university, compared with 12% of Mixed and Asian school leavers and 11% of White school leavers.
- Black Caribbean and Mixed White/Black Caribbean children have rates of permanent exclusion about three times that of the pupil population as a whole.
Source
All the statistics in this section were taken from the recent EHRC report 'Healing a divided Britain'. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/healing_a_divided_britain_-_the_need_for_a_comprehensive_race_equality_strategy_final.pdf
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News from our Advisory Friends
Leander Neckles - FOI request on G4S 
You may have seen reports in the press that the Government Equalities Office (GEO) has awarded the contract to take over the running of the Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) from 1 October this year to the controversial firm G4S. This announcement comes despite a House of Lords review calling for the service to be taken back into the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). You may also have seen a petition launched by Sum Of Us asking for this decision to be reversed.
IEDP advisory friend, Leander Neckles, has sent a detailed Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking a range of questions about this, including:
- Can you please direct me to a UK government website or another public website containing the 2016 EASS tender specification?
- The EHRC identified that it had concerns about the tender specification produced by the GEO. Were all of the concerns raised by the EHRC addressed by the GEO amending the tender specification?
- Did the tender assessment process assess the successful track record of potential contractors in providing advice on equalities' matters?
- Did the tender assessment process ensure that potential contractors did not have a serious track record of non-compliance with UK equality or human rights legislative requirements?
Leander has promised to keep us informed when she has a response from the GEO. Watch this space!
 Linda Bellos - Letter in The Guardian
As ever, Linda has been busy holding the government to account in terms of their legal responsibilities under The Equality Act 2010. The following letter was published in The Guardian on 29 August:
It is surprising that the former home secretary and current prime minister seems unaware that the Equality Act 2010 contained section 1, which addressed the issue of class – not very clearly, however. But one of the first acts of the coalition government of which she was part was to drop that provision. Much more importantly, few civil or public servants have received any training on any aspect of the 2010 act. Spending more time and money finding out what is already known (PM unveils plan to tackle racial discrimination, 27 August) seems to me a waste of both. Just get on with ensuring that public servants and those in the private sector that provide services on behalf of the public sector know how they meet the public sector duty under section 149 of the 2010 Equality Act.
Linda Bellos
Norwich
 Robin Richardson - promoting cultural capital
Robin has drawn our attention to a brilliant idea from the headteacher of Highbury Grove School in Islington, Tom Sherrington, on his blog headguruteacher. As part of a strategy to develop their students' cultural capital, the school has decided to name each room in the building after 'a significant person.' Biographical details of that person will be displayed both outside and inside the door of the room. Each department has been given the task of naming the spaces they teach in, with input into the selection process from both staff and students. So, for example, the Maths rooms, instead of being called MA1, MA2 etc are now called Srinivasa Ramanujan, Leonhard Euler, Hypatia, Emma Noether, Alan Turing, Rene Descartes, Maryam Mirzakhani and Sophie Germain, and the Maths office is called Pythagoras.
This is such a clever idea, as the number of rooms involved has made it possible to go for a really diverse selection of people in terms of local / global, contemporary / historical, gender, ethnicity, religion and belief, disability, sexual orientation and age. Let's hope it catches on and is picked up by a lot of other schools.
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LGBT Olympians
By Elaine Bolton
Love it or hate it – the Olympics may have been that 'Marmite' experience for you. I loved the Olympics (and I love Marmite!) and was amazed at how so many of the athletes trained for four years to showcase their talent and gain a medal for Team GB to take part in an event that lasted for only a minute or two. Congratulations to all those that competed and won medals – the athletes and all the support teams across the World.
Not only was Great Britain second in the medal table but also we were joint top in the number of competitors who were LGBT (and of course there may have been more of the GB team that had not been or did not feel that they were able to be open about their sexual orientation). This was highlighted in a recent article in The Times headlined Britain puts the GB into LGBT.
What a great example to the rest of the world - especially those 76+ countries where same sex relationships are still illegal.
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Social work is about human rights
 This interview with Rob Mitchell, principal social worker for adult services in Calderdale, by Rachel Carter in Community Care was suggested by social worker Roisin Toolan. Click photo to read
These out celebs in India are trying to decriminalise homosexuality
 This article by Aashna Malpani in Advocate.com was highlighted by the It Gets Better project. Click photo to read
Government austerity policy a breach of human rights, says UN report
 Zoe Nosworkthy recommended this article by Caroline Mortimer from Independent.co.uk Click photo to read
Three cheers for the gay marriage that ended the Isle of Man's dark history of bigotry
 An article by Helen Pidd from The Guardian suggested by the British Humanist Association is about the first same sex marriage to take place on the Isle of Man Click photo to read
Three things that women say that weaken the power of their words
An article about gender and language by Heather Libby, recommended by Upworthy Click photo to read
Do sharia courts threaten human rights?
 UK human rights blog recommended this interesting article by Oliva Percival from rightsinfo Click photo to read
Think that homophobia no longer exists in Britain? You're wrong it's even on the BBC
A member of Wolverhampton LGBT Network was interested in this article by Matt Horwood on Independent.co.uk Click photo to read
Banning the burkini is misogynistic - and western feminists are turning a blind eye
 Ruth Wilson saw this article about the recent burkini ban on French beaches by Huda Jawad on Independent.co.uk Click photo to read
When swimming and playing football are revolutionary acts 
Phoebe Grace recommended this article by Kashmira Ganda on Independent.co.uk about trans sports clubs Click photo to read
Female and LGBT students most likely to develop mental health problems
 HeadStart Wolves drew our attention to this article by Aftab Ali on Independent.co.uk Click photo to read
Normal in our society means male - women are written out of the story
This article by Laura Bates in The Guardian was pointed out by Kay Fuller Click photo to read
Over 80% of local authority websites fail 'readability' guidelines
 Denise Rabor recommended this article from Public Sector Executive (PSE) about accessibility of information on local government websites. Click photo to read
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Students at schools with Gay Straight Alliances far less likely to be bullied
 Ruth Wilson was interested in this article by David Hudson in Gay Star News about a study in America. Click photo to read
Gender Identity clinic services under strain as referral rates soar 
Sofia Ali drew our attention to this article by Kate Lyons in The Guardian, which reveals that some people are waiting up to four years for a referral Click photo to read
People think we wake up and decide to be trans
 Liz Skelcher suggested this article by Kate Lyons in The Guardian in which five trans people tell their stories Click photo to read
What role do Muslims have in building a secular UK?
 This article by Tehmina Kazi from the National Secular Society's blog has been recommended by Birmingham Humanists. Click photo to read
How to talk about female Olympians without being a regressive creep - a handy guide
 This article by Lindy West in The Guardian was recommended by Katrice Horseley and was one of a number of similar pieces commenting on sexist commentary during the olympics
Click photo to read
Case raises issues on supporting transgender employees at work 
This article by Stuart Jones from the CIPD website was recommended by Denise Rabor. It concerns a recent tribunal case, Bisson vs Condor Ferries. Click photo to read
Children in care often lack mentor support
 Deborah Owen suggested this article by Judith Burns on BBC twitter about recent research by Barnados Click photo to read
Anti-Muslim discrimination - a terrible social injustice
 IEDP Advisory Friend Robin Richardson recommended this Guardian editorial on Islamophobia Click photo to read
Muslim couple kicked off Delta flight / I was escorted off a flight due to racist profiling
 Two recent articles about Muslims being discriminated against on flights. Ruth Wilson found Muslim couple kicked off flight for sweating, saying Allah and texting - an article by Rachael Revesz in Independent.co.uk, while I was escorted off a flight due to racist profiling by Maryam Dharas in The Guardian was spotted by Ben Davies.
The ignorance aimed at Caster Semenya flies in the face of the Olympic spirit
Kay Fuller recommended this article by Katrina Karkazis in The Guardian, written after comments  made by sixth place Lynsey Sharp Click photo to read
Potential Paralympics star forced to pull out due to cuts in disability support
This article by Frances Ryan in The Guardian about the impact of cuts in support for disabled people came to the attention of Nicola Fern. It highlights an anti-austerity campaign being organised by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) to coincide with the Paralympics in Rio. Click logo to read
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Fab films
This issue's videos have been selected by Ruth Wilson
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A Social Experiment
YouTube video of two young men, one Muslim and one Jewish, walking together in the street and the reaction they got from passers by.
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Everyday racism - what should we do?
Not a new video, but Akala is always worth listening to. Thanks Lorna Laidlaw for sharing this one.
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The future evolution of human sexuality
TED talk by Peter Tatchell in June last year where he shares some speculative ideas on the subject. He delivers a very interesting view on sexuality and where society might be heading in terms of evolution of human culture pertaining to the acceptance of LGBT people.
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Account of the last IEDP board meeting
By Ruth Wilson
 As usual, here is a brief account of the most recent IEDP board meeting. This was held on 23 August 2016 and was a Skype meeting
Finance
Management accounts up to 31 July 2016 had been circulated in advance and were reviewed and approved. There was a discussion about different ways of generating income and particularly attracting more corporate members.
Publicity / marketing
Denise updated the board about the IEDP’s intern, Dorcas, who will be leaving soon. The board is very grateful for the work she has done, particularly on social media. We now have 440 followers on Twitter. Denise is advertising for a replacement. We have a problem with the ownership of the LinkedIn group and options for moving forward on this were considered. Contents of the next newsletter were discussed.
Mission statement / objectives
It was agreed that these need to be looked at and the wording tweaked. Denise offered to circulate a draft for discussion.
Events
It was agreed to hold the next IEDP seminar in October and ask one of our Advisory Friends to facilitate it. We also planned a social event to be held in December.
Accreditation
Kate fed back on the recent accreditation panel. It was agreed that we need to provide better guidance for people going for re-registration. The partnership with Newcastle University is going well and there was a discussion about rolling out this model to other universities.
Next meeting
The next Board meeting will be on 18 October in London. Venue to be arranged.
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Contact us
The Institute of Equality and
Diversity Practitioners
2 Old College Court, 29 Priory Street, Ware, Hertfordshire, SG12 0DE
tel: 0844 482 7263
fax: 0844 8225 215
email: info@iedp.org.uk
web: www.iedp.org.uk
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And finally...
We hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter and would welcome any feedback or suggestions about how we could improve it for the benefit of our members. If you have any ideas for future editions or would be interested in writing an item for the next issue please contact Ruth Wilson on:
ruth@equalitiesineducation.co.uk
The deadline for contributions to the next issue is 28 October 2016. Please circulate this newsletter to anyone who may be interested in our work or who may wish to join the Institute.
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