Last updated: 11 Dec 2007

The Diversity and Inclusion Team ( D & I Team) at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is based in Legal and Corporate Affairs. It is lead by Carol Copland and the Diversity and Inclusion Programme Manager is Sarah Loutfi. The team has two part-time research and policy assistants Claire Cantle and Claire Herbert and is assisted by Paul Hoedmaker and Emma Leacock.

• Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs - Carol Copland
• Diversity and Inclusion Programme Manager - Sarah Loutfi
• Team Co-ordintaor - Claire Cantle
• Team Co-ordinator - Claire Herbert
• Team Administrator - Emma Leacock
• Equality Mailbox: equality@qca.org.uk

Equality Frameworks & Policies

QCA has recently produced its first equality scheme in line with the statutory disability equality duty in December 2006. This was followed by the publication of our Gender Equality Scheme in April 2007. QCA recognises that we have further to go in making equality a reality for all our staff, learners and service users and for this reason we have produced a Single Equality Scheme which sets out our commitment to progressing equality across all six equality strand areas: 'race', gender, disability, sexual orientation, age and religion/belief. You can access the scheme via the Single Equality Scheme link in the related documents' section on the right-hand side of this page.

Diversity & Inclusion Strategy Group (DISG) The Diversity and Inclusion Strategy Group comprises of 22 staff members representing each of QCA's divisions. Individuals have nominated themselves to join the group and act as one of their division's diversity and inclusion representatives.The role of the group is to facilitate the dissemination of equality and diversity best practice throughout the organisation and to embed diversity and inclusion into each of QCA's policies. Members' are responsible for the implementation of their divisional D&I action plans and report to the D & I Team on progress. The main functions of the DISG are to:

• Provide a communication forum across QCA to ensure a consistent approach to D&I is taken across the organisation
• Provide an arena to discuss D&I issues and to share success and achievements
• Identify divisional resource issues
• Provide a reporting mechanism to the Executive and Board
• Enable QCA to audit compliance with duties imposed by equalities legislation

Disabled People's Advisory Panel

The Disabled People's Advisory Panel was recently set up in May 2007 to advise and assist QCA on the most effective ways to address inequalities and barriers facing disabled learners, service users and employees.

The panel currently comprises 20 members with expertise across a range of areas including pre-school, primary and secondary education, further and higher education, research, health and nursing, advisory work and equalities practice.

The Disabled People's Advisory Panel's responsibilities are: to provide clear advice to QCA on promoting disability equality and on meeting requirements of the Disability Equality Duty; to challenge QCA to develop best practice in disability equality; to assist QCA in identifying system-wide barriers and issues, and in seeking solutions.

Training

QCA places great importance on the equalities development and progression of its staff. In light of this, the D&I team, together with input from the Learning and Development team, have developed training packages dealing with a range of equalities issues for the professional development of our employees.

QCA is committed to embedding equalities into the heart of what we do and is strives to deliver all training internally rather than place reliance on outside consultants. By doing this, we are developing our staff into equalities champions, facilitators and learners, knowledge is spread internally and there is always someone to ask for those with questions.

As a result of an staff training needs audit conducted in early May, we have produced guidance on high priority areas to be rolled out across the divisions.