Gender Equality Scheme (GES)

1. Introduction

The gender equality duty is a new legal requirement on all public authorities, including colleges, when carrying out all their functions, to have due regard to the need -

• To eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sex
• To promote equality of opportunity between women and men

Functions include policy-making, service provision, employment matters, and statutory discretion, as well as decision-making. 'Due regard' means that the College should give due weight to the need to promote gender equality in proportion to its relevance. The duty requires the College to identify and tackle discrimination, to prevent harassment, and to ensure that their work promotes equality of opportunity between men and women. It is different from previous sex equality legislation in two crucial respects -

• The College has to be proactive in eliminating discrimination and harassment, rather than waiting for individuals to take cases against them
• The College has to be proactive in promoting equality of opportunity, and not just avoiding discrimination

The duty requires the College to take action on the most important gender equality issues within their functions. The promotion of equal opportunities between women and men requires the College to recognise that the two groups are not starting from an equal footing and identical treatment will not always be appropriate. Under the duty the College also has an obligation to eliminate discrimination and harassment towards current and potential transsexual staff. This duty will extend to trans-sexual service users in December 2007.

2. General and Specific Duties

The duty applies in England, Scotland and Wales.

The duty is made up of two elements, the 'general' duty and the 'specific' duties. The general duty is the overall duty to eliminate discrimination and harassment and to promote equality. The general duty will come into force in Great Britain on 6th April 2007.

The specific duties are not an objective in themselves, but a means of meeting the general duty. The specific duties for England, Scotland and Wales are different. Full details of the legal requirements of the duty are set out in the statutory Code of Practice for England and Wales and the separate Code for Scotland.

Under the English specific duties the College is required to -

• Prepare and publish a gender equality scheme, showing how it will meet its general and specific duties and setting out its gender equality objectives.
• In formulating its overall objectives, consider the need to include objectives to address the causes of any gender pay gap.
• Gather and use information on how the College's policies and practices affect gender equality in the workforce and in the delivery of services.
• To consult stakeholders (i.e. employees, service users and others, including trade unions) and take account of relevant information in order to determine its gender equality objectives.
• To assess the impact of its current and proposed policies and practices on gender equality.
• To implement the actions set out in its scheme within three years, unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.
• To report against the scheme every year and review the scheme at least every three years.

The College must publish its gender equality scheme by 30th April 2007.

Derwentside College Scheme

Basic Principles

The scheme narrative will be brief and the plan will concentrate on actions that will have positive and quantifiable outcomes. It should be a dynamic document that will change as a result of regular reviews and initiatives. It will initially concentrate on some fairly basic issues and become more complex and detailed as it progresses with for example the introduction of specific targets.

The scheme will cover learners, staff and members of the wider community. It will be proportionate to the size and complexity of the College and the make-up of learners, staff and the wider community.

To be effective the scheme and action plan require the full commitment and support of the governing body and senior management. This will include appropriate prioritising in the annual planning cycle and allocation of resources.

The scheme must be adopted and implemented across the whole organisation.

The scheme needs to take account of and be consistent with similar existing or future equality related duties e.g. race, disability and age.

Current Information

A lot of detailed information is already available both in terms of staffing and learners. For example 69% of all staff are female compared to 52% of the local population although this breaks down as 68% of teaching staff and 73% of support staff. The average annual salary for a male member of staff is £24,000 compared with £20,000 for a female. However within teaching staff the average salary is higher for women than for men.

With regard to learners 60% of overall enrolments are female with 96% for hairdressing and beauty and only 3% for engineering courses. Attendance and success rates show higher attendance by male learners but higher success rates for female learners.

Existing approaches to gender

Derwentside College is fully committed to the elimination of discrimination and harassment and the promotion of equal opportunities. This is evident in all relevant College policies and procedures. Equal Opportunities is a fundamental part of learner induction and tutorials as well as playing a major part in curriculum planning. The College has been and continues to be successful in such initiatives as 'women into engineering' and 'men into hairdressing' The College is currently delivering a very successful project to get teenage mums back into education.

Producing the Scheme

The College scheme has been drawn up by a small sub-group of the Equality and Diversity Committee that reports to the Senior Management Team (SMT) and Board of the Corporation.

An initial draft of the scheme has been made available to all staff, trade unions and learners seeking comments. This was preceded by a request to staff and learners to highlight any issues around gender that they wished to raise.

Objectives, Action Plan and Reporting Arrangements

Details of the Action Plan can be found here. The action plan aims to ensure the College meets the following objectives -

1. The College has an equal pay policy and can clearly demonstrate equality of pay between men and women
2. The College will have information systems that allow comparisons of gender impact across all areas of its business
3. The College has a system to carry out impact assessments on all policies, procedures and practices
4. The College will seek to ensure all staff are aware of and are regularly updated on equality and diversity issues
5. The College will seek to ensure a fair gender balance in all managerial positions and on representative and decision-making groups
6. The College will seek to increase the number of males on traditionally female courses and females on traditionally male courses
7. The College will seek to ensure that success rates between male and female learners are proportionate

The GES action plan covers an initial three-year period. Generally the issues identified in the plan should, and will be completed well ahead of that time period. Rather than identify further actions at this stage it is felt that it is better for these to evolve from the implementation of the current action points. The annual report on the plan will offer the opportunity to amend, revise or add action points. In this way the plan is more likely to remain current and relevant.

Approval and Publication

This scheme will be considered formally by the Board of the Corporation on 17 May 2007 and any amendments published on the College website.