Workforce equalities reporting

We've been collecting equalities data for almost 50 years - since the first first Racedefinition Relations Act in 1965, yet the history and analysis of published workforce diversity information in education and training is piecemeal because of:

  • Changes in equalities legislation
  • National government and sector policy changes 
  • The diversity of provider types and sizes in the sector
  • The diversity and autonomy of sector membership bodies
  • Different data collection tools, monitoring practices and reporting
  • The cyclical closures of national sector bodiescharged with sectro workforce diversity monitoring and reporting
  • Failure to entertain radical critical analyses of the data in the light of EHRCdefinition reports, the various sector equality commissions, benchmarking against other sectors and/or our changing society.

There are currently 2 main sources of workforce equalities data:

Published reports/inquiries Labour market intelligence data

Surely it is time for education and training organisations to build on this experience of data collection and monitoring to ensure that records are kept and effective monitoring takes place to identify possible discrimination throughout the recruitment, selection and employment and remuneration process. Identifying and tackling discrimination is essential to providing equality of opportunity for protected/under-represented groups to join and remain in the workforce and achieve genuine equality of access to professional development and progression.