Equalities legislation and reporting

The nine protected characteristics are:

• Age – not including under-18s
• Disability
• Gender reassignment – including people who have proposed, started or completed a process to change their sex but who are not under medical supervision
• Marriage/civil partnership – not including those who are not married/in a civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity – defined as all stages of pregnancy and the 26 week period following the birth of a child
• Race – including caste, nationality, ethnicity, skin colour
• Religion or belief – including atheism or agnosticism
• Sex
• Sexual orientation

The Equality Act (2010), including the Public Sector Equality Duty (pdf), consolidates and replaces all previous equalities legislation such as the Race Relations Act, Disability Discrimination Act and Sex Discrimination Act.

The equalities legislation is about more than simply ensuring staff and students are protected against discrimination; it also places positive responsibility on the university.

As a public sector body, the university is required to ensure that we pay ‘due regard’ when making decisions to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other prohibited conduct under the Equality Act (2010)
• Advance equality of opportunity between people of different groups
• Foster good relations between people from different groups.

What this means for the university

The university has a number of policies that promote equality and diversity for its staff and students. Details of staff-facing policies, such as support for parents, Disability Confident and flexible working and retirement, can be found in the Working with us section.

Staff benefits such as leave entitlements; support for parents and carers; staff development opportunities and flexible working provisions are open to all staff irrespective of age, disability, gender, gender identity, marriage/civil partnership status, race, religion/belief or sexual orientation.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan (pdf) includes our institutional Equality Objectives for 2017-2021. The objectives are informed by institutional data and research and were developed in consultation with staff and student representatives. These are to ensure that equality and diversity considerations are mainstreamed within all parts of the day-to-day running of the university and to allow us to make informed and appropriate decisions which do not inadvertently disadvantage people who share protected characteristics.

Mainstreaming activities include:

• Inclusion of equality and diversity commitment in all Committee Terms of Reference, ensuring adherence to the Public Sector Equality Duty and centrality of equality and diversity considerations to the purpose and structure of the university’s decision-making forums
• Impact assessments or other forms of equality analysis carried out on all major changes and activities at the university
• Further embedding of equalities within Committee discussions and decisions through the inclusion of equalities impact considerations in all Committee papers
• Staff Equality Network Groups, run by staff, for staff, with support from the Equality and Diversity Team. These Network Groups are embedded in the university’s Equality and Diversity structure, and are represented on the Equality and Diversity Committee, as well as by their Equality Champions at the University Executive Board.

Equalities monitoring reports

The university gathers and publishes a range of equalities monitoring data about its staff and students, including on age, disability, gender and race.

We gather this information so we can understand the make-up of the university community and to help us identify whether there are any differences in the experiences of people with different protected characteristics – for example, in relation to staff and student recruitment, student attainment and staff grading and turnover rates. To access this information, please see our latest Staff Equalities Report (pdf) and Student Equalities Report (pdf).

The information contained in our annual staffing reviews and student equalities reports informs our priorities, including our involvement in equality charters and benchmarking initiatives, and the tailored activities we pledge to undertake in the associated actions plans.

Equality data on staff and students within the UK higher education sector more broadly can be found in the ECU statistical reports (pdf).

Gender pay gap reporting

In 2017, the government introduced new legislation that made it a statutory requirement for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap.

You can read our first Gender Pay Gap report here (pdf).