Lord Carter at the Equality in Sport Conference on 9th November 2004 launched The Equality Standard: A Framework for Sport (The Standard) is a vehicle for widening access and increasing participation and involvement in sport and physical activitywithin London by under represented individuals, groups and communities, especially women and girls, ethnic minority groups and disabled people. It will assist sports organisations in developing appropriate policies, structures, processes and procedures in addition to assessing performance and ensuring continuous improvement in equality.
The Standard draws upon lessons learnt from the ‘Achieving Racial Equality: A Standard for Sport’, published by Sporting Equals in December 2000.
It is collaboration between all four Home Country Sports Councils and UK Sport. The Standard is endorsed and fully supported by the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF), the English Federation of Disability of Sport (EFDS) and Sporting Equals. The Standard also has the backing of the CCPR.
The Standard has four levels of achievement; Foundation, Preliminary, Intermediate and Advanced.
The Standard is based on two broad functional areas of; Developing the Organisation and Developing the Services.
Developing the Organisation relates to what an organisation is in terms of its culture, policies, leadership and individual people within it. Developing the Services relates to what the organisation does – i.e. the impact that policies, leadership and people have on the customers, programmes, communications and overall customer satisfaction and service.
To achieve any of the four levels, relevant evidence must be submitted and verified across both functional areas. The exact process and validation of the Equality Standard will depend on the level being strived for. A formal accreditation process has been developed including the use of an independent panel.
The benefits of the Standard are numerous and include helping to;
- Provide a framework for achieving equality in sport
- Increase participation levels
- Help meet legal duties
- Enhance skills and knowledge base of your staff
- Improve practices through monitoring, evaluation and review methods
- Build on existing good practice in equality
- Assess and review current policy/procedures
Sport England London Region requirements
Sport England is committed to achieving the Preliminary Level by 31st March 2006. It is imperative that we show leadership by demonstrating to our partners our commitment to the Standard as a key aspect of our delivery programme. This will involve a complete ‘corporate’ portfolio of evidence being assessed by an independent panel during February 2006.
Each Region and Directorate within the Support Centre will be required to submit a portfolio of evidence to contribute to the ‘corporate’ portfolio.
Each Region and Directorate will have to ‘pass’ both the Foundation and Preliminary Level of the Standard to ensure ‘corporate’ success.
The Standard is a Framework for a variety of Sports Organisations – not just Sport England;
National Governing Bodies of Sport are working towards a formal assessment and accreditation of their portfolio, containing evidence to show how they meet each objective within a particular level of the Equality Standard for Sport. Sport England has set a target for Priority and Development sports to reach a state of readiness to be assessed and accredited to achieve the Preliminary Level of the Equality Standard for Sport by March 2006.
National Sports Organisations are expected to reach the Preliminary Level of the Equality Standard for Sport by March 2006.
Sub Regional Sports Partnerships will also be using the Equality Standard for Sport, in the first instance, as a self-assessment tool (March 2006) with a view to having a Preliminary Level portfolio assessed and accredited in March 2007.
Local Authorities can continue using the ‘Promoting Racial Equality Through Sport: A Standard for Local Authority Sport and Leisure Services’ as either a self-assessment tool or submit specific portfolio for assessment and accreditation. If a Local Authority wishes, it could use the Equality Standard for Sport as a self-assessment tool with a view to entering the formal assessment and accreditation at a later date.
London Regional approach
It is anticipated that the time commitment to achieve the Preliminary Level by March 2006 by Sport England London region will be significant. It is believed that this is particularly relevant as the region wishes to embed equality and diversity into all work within the region, and does not simply view the exercise as one of a ‘tick box’ process or award gained by the region, driven by just one individual. It is suggested that the following actions are taken to address ‘internally’ the work that needs to be done;
Identify a project ‘leader’ – Melanie Rodrigues
Identify a project team/regional implementation group – two staff member from Sports Development, two staff members from Facilities and Investment, Business Support and Communications.
Identify a member of the RSB to be the project ‘champion’.
Work closely with the other ‘southern cell ’ Sport England regional lead officers (South East and South West) to share practice, policies and good practice.
Develop a Regional Implementation Plan – deadline 1st September 2005. (Plan to include all strands and how integrated support can be provided to staff within the region, key partners and stakeholders alike).
In addition to the work that needs to be carried out internally, the project ‘leader’ will facilitate training, workshops and communications to be available to key external partners such as CSP’s, NGB’s and Local Authorities.
Produce a report for every RSB meeting – detailing progress and achievement of milestones against the Regional Implementation Plan.
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