One group, responding to a ‘one size fits all' approach to customer service, were emphatic that "treating everyone the same" has no place when it comes to delivering quality of service to a diverse community; that it does not promote equality and can lead to unlawful discrimination.
Another group carried out a SWOT analysis, identifying strengths and opportunities for organisations that actively promote equalities, and weaknesses and threats for those where only ‘lip service' is paid.
A further group indicated areas where they expected to find evidence that equalities was being promoted: in job descriptions and person specifications, employment data gathering, monitoring and publishing, advertising policy and practice, and the presence of an equalities statement/policy.
A range of key actions that the Improvement Service itself could take to ensure equalities are being promoted were also identified. These include: being a good role model; ensuring access to services for all; promoting and adopting good practice; and awareness and recognition events. Staff also had the opportunity to contribute to the development of the IS' own equalities policy.
To round off this session, staff identified what they considered to be the critical success factors for equalities:
- resources for equalities work;
- ensuring equalities is integrated from the planning stage onwards;
- completing equality impact assessments on key programmes and projects;
- ensuring equalities is fully integrated into the IS' own performance management system.
