Summary and background
These actions will form part of the Trust’s Equality Objectives and overarching Equality Diversity & Inclusion Work Plan for 2021 and beyond.
The WRES was first mandated in July 2015 to ensure employees from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair and equal treatment in the workplace. The WRES standard is also cross-referenced to the Equality Delivery System 2 (EDS2) to support performance review, set equality objectives and deliver on the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED which sets out the ‘general’ and ‘specific’ duties on public authorities as indicted below:
The general duty to
- Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and other conduct prohibited by the Act.
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
- Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
The specific duty to
ï‚· Publish equality information at least once a year to show how they’ve complied with the equality duty.
ï‚· Prepare and publish equality objectives at least every 4 years.
To put the WRES into context the NHS People Plan states that…
‘… to embed the important interventions that improve the experience of our people, we will develop a new offer with our people setting out explicitly the support they can expect from the NHS as a modern employer…’
This will be framed around the broad themes of:
‘… creating a healthy, inclusive and compassionate culture, enabling great development and fulfilling careers, and ensuring everyone feels they have voice, control and influence…’
The interim plan then expands on
‘Creating a healthy, inclusive and compassionate culture’ by setting out ‘action to improve equality will need to run through all elements of the work on this new offer. This will include further action to embed the Workforce Race Equality Standard…..’.
Recommendations
Adopt a program of review and development to include recommendations for change across all of the 9 WRES indicators. The key priorities are:
- Review and refresh the policy around Recruitment and Selection.
- Undertake a Race Disparity Audit
- Engage with external development programs
- Work towards a Zero Tolerance policy
Incorporate data from the WRES outcomes and develop a specific WRES action plan indicating all areas that need improvement
Download the workforce equality standard (WRES) report and way forward (744kB pdf)