UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Equality and Diversity Committee
Minutes of the meeting held on 15 May
2015
Present:
Pro-Vice Chancellor for People and Public Engagement (in the
Chair), Mrs C Algar, Dr E Campbell, Mrs S Crookes, Mrs K Fisher,
Ms B Husakova, Rev S Jennings, Mr S Lamb, Ms D Markham, Mrs
G McGrattan, Dr M Shewring, Ms S Smart, Mr A Thompson, Mr D
Wallis
Apologies:
Dr J Angouri, Dr S Burrows, Mrs B Hay, Mr M Mik, Mrs C O’Leary,
Mr M Potter, Dr N Rabbani, Ms R Roke, Professor P Scott,
Professor S Rai, Mr A Thompson, Mrs L Walls
In Attendance:
Mrs S Beaufoy - HR Adviser – Equality and Diversity (Assistant
Secretary); Mr P Blagburn, Senior Assistant Registrar (Outreach)
(for item 5); Ms S Meharg
27/14-15
Conflicts of Interest
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
That, should any members or attendees of the Equality and Diversity
Committee have any conflicts of interest relating to agenda items for
the meeting, they should be declared at the beginning of the meeting.
RESOLVED:
That no conflicts of interest be recorded.
28/14-15
Minutes
RESOLVED:
That the minutes of the meeting of the Equality and Diversity
Committee held on 3 February 2015 be approved.
29/14-15
Matters Arising
(a) Athena SWAN Charter and the Gender Equality Charter Marks
REPORTED: (by the HR Adviser – Equality and Diversity)
(i)
That the amalgamation of Athena SWAN and the Gender
Equality Charter Mark took effect from 1 May 2015, and will
now be referred to only as Athena SWAN.
(ii) That STEMM departments will have a choice of whether they
continue to use the existing Athena application forms or the
new form for submissions up until November 2016.
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(iii) That Arts and Social Science departments must use the new
Athena SWAN forms immediately for submissions in November
2015.
(iv) That professional and support staff statistics will be included in
the institutional submission.
(v) That in order for departments to submit for the new Athena
award, the University must sign up to all the principles of the
Charter.
(vi) That both staff and student data teams have been notified of
the new Athena template requirements.
(vii) That it is anticipated that Warwick will have at least ten
departments submitting for awards in November 2015.
(b)
Recruitment and Selection Report
RECEIVED:
A report on the recruitment and selection data for the period
01/08/2013 to 31/07/2014.
REPORTED: (by the HR Adviser – Equality and Diversity)
(i)
That shortlisting data has not been presented in the
statistics, because the recorded data are incomplete.
This was considered to be the result of departments not
sending recruitment shortlists to HR, as they are
required to do.
(ii)
That the statistics show that more jobs have been
offered than adverts placed, due to some adverts being
for multiple jobs.
(iii)
That whilst there are marginally more posts offered to
females, the split is not even between grades. There
are substantially more roles offered to females at lower
grades.
(iv)
That the employment figures for both ethnicity and
disability are low, with the majority being in support
posts.
(v)
That recruitment data will in future be in the annual
Workforce Profile Report presented to the Committee at
the Autumn meeting.
(vi)
That as applications from females, BME and disabled
people are low, it raises questions on the attractiveness
of our offers and how posts are being advertised. This
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is perhaps an area for a Strategic Discussion for a
subsequent meeting of E&D Committee.
(c)
He4She Campaign
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
(i)
That the He4She campaign is a global effort to engage
men and boys in removing the social and cultural
barriers that prevent women and girls from achieving
their potential.
(ii)
That the He4She Campaign was discussed at an
Athena Steering Group meeting and members were
asked to comment on the feasibility of Warwick signing
up to the campaign.
(iii)
That the Athena Steering Group members raised some
concerns on whether the University could deliver on
some of the actions.
(iv)
That given the He4She campaign is a global initiative, it
would be a very positive initiative for the University.
(v)
That the campaign would need to be a joint initiative
with the Students Union.
RESOLVED: The HR Adviser, Equality and Diversity to organise a
meeting between the Chair and the Students Union
President to discuss a joint approach on the He4She
campaign.
(d)
Estates Project Planning
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
(a) That the Chair had met with James Breckon, Director of Estates,
to discuss campus accessibility, in relation to staff and students
with mobility issues.
(b) That the Director of Estates had confirmed that two members of
staff, David Mason and Jane Openshaw, had responsibility to
ensure that all Estates work complied with the appropriate
legislation.
(c) That Duncan Stiles had responsibility for Estates Health and
Safety and that Stephen Hughes is the Equality and Diversity
Liaison Officer for Estates.
(d) That the Contractor Code of Conduct has recently been reviewed,
which outlines the expected behavior of contractors whilst on
campus.
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(e) That currently, building work is assessed and reported on
individually for equality and diversity issues, as there is no formal
policy in place to inform all building work/modifications.
(f) That it would be sensible, to have a Building E&D Policy in place,
which should be approved through the Equality and Diversity
Committee.
(g) That whilst some improvements have been made, any major
building/estate changes should be made in consultation with
University Disability Advisers.
(h) That it would be sensible if a representative from Estates became
a member of the Equality and Diversity Committee.
RESOLVED:
That the HR Adviser, Equality and Diversity liaise with Governance to add an
Estates representative to the membership of the Committee, noting that this
would have to go through a recommendation to Senate.
30/14-15
Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) – Membership Costs
REPORTED: (by the HR Adviser, Equality and Diversity)
31/14-15
(i)
That ECU have been told by HEFCE that with effect from 31
December 2015 the funding that they receive from HEFCE will
cease.
(ii)
That consequently, from January 2016, ECU propose charging
institutions an annual subscription charge that would be
implemented as part of a sliding scale, dependent upon the
institutions income. It is anticipated that the cost to Warwick
will be approximately £20k.
(iii)
That the proposed subscription charges will only be for English
Universities. The Scottish Funding Council have already
committed to funding the ECU for a further three years. Wales
and Northern Ireland have yet to be decided.
(iv)
That ECU are consulting with the sector to gauge a response
to the proposal.
(v)
That Warwick has responded to the consultation to say that it
would be preferential to have a sliding scale of subscription
charges so that HEIs have an opportunity to either sign up for
one or both Charter Marks rather than sign up for the full set of
services provided by ECU.
Widening Participation and Student Recruitment
RECEIVED:
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A report on Warwick’s student success outcomes for widening
participation groups with some analysis benchmarking of
Warwick’s performance with Russell Group Universities (EDC Paper
13/14-15).
REPORTED: (by the Senior Assistant Registrar (Outreach))
(i)
That the University submitted its 2016/17 access agreement to
OFFA in April 2015.
(ii) That it is the first time that sector outcomes have been included in
the agreement.
(iii) That whilst the University’s targets and strategic priorities remain
firmly on access, further attention is shifting to the wider student
lifecycle including monitoring student success and progression
outcomes.
(iv) That OFFA’s recently published strategic plan 2015-2020 sets out
ambitious objectives to make faster progress to increase the
participation rate of higher education entrants from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups, and narrow the
participation gap between people from the most and least
advantaged backgrounds.
(v) That Warwick’s access performance amongst the three defined
HESA performance indicators has been relatively stable
compared to Russell Group peer institutions over the past three
years, with Warwick performing just above the 50 percentile on
state schools and LPN entrants and below the 75 percentile for
low socio-economic groups in 2014/14.
(vi) That competitor groups change on an annual basis.
(vii) That Warwick has been monitoring student success outcomes of
widening participation groups and that the figures indicate that
students from disadvantaged backgrounds, on average,
outperform their non-WP peers and the university average on
attaining a good honours degree.
(viii) That on average, state school students tend to have better degree
outcomes and outperform their non-state peer groups by
significant margins.
(ix) That future data reports could be broken down to Faculty level
and could also include employability data obtained through
Student Careers and Skills.
32/14-15
Race Charter Mark
REPORTED: (by the HR Adviser, Equality and Diversity)
(i) That a Self-Assessment Group is currently being formed to start to
address the issues raised on the Race Equality Charter submission
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form and to start to analyse Warwick’s data and benchmark it against
national data.
(ii) That the first meeting of the Race Equality Charter will take place on
19 May 2015.
33/14-15
Equality Objectives
REPORTED: (by the HR Adviser - Equality and Diversity)
(i) That the University’s Equality Objectives for 2015 onwards are being
reviewed in line with the new University Strategy.
(ii) That at a recent Equality and Diversity Network meeting, staff were
given an opportunity to think about and discuss possible objectives
that would align to the goals of the strategy.
REPORTED: (by D Wallis)
(i)
That staff were asked at the Equality and Diversity Network meeting
to consider what equality and diversity implications there might be for
the six goals of the strategy.
(ii) That there had been a strong interest in the student side and
measures that could be taken to ensure a diverse student population.
(iii) That staff were concerned on how the University is perceived by the
local community and how we could improve the interactions with the
community. That this may connect with the attractiveness of our job
offers to particular groups as minuted under 29/14-15 (b) (vi).
(iv) That our international partnerships, such as Monash, share the same
equality and diversity values as Warwick.
34/14-15
Student Disability Services
(a) Disability Interest Group
RECEIVED:
The notes of the Disability Interest Group meeting held on 22 April 2015.
REPORTED: (by the Disability Coordinator)
(i)
That the meeting continues to be well attended.
(ii) That a number of complaints around campus accessibility had been
resolved, and that communication with Estates on accessibility
issues had been improved.
(b) Disabled Student Allowance
(i) That the Working Group, Chaired by the PVC for People and Public
Engagement, which had been formed to discuss the proposed
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changes to the Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) has now met
twice and some actions have already been progressed.
(ii) That the Group will investigate how the proposed changes will impact
on both current and prospective students and the university, and how
the university can improve the provisions that are already in place
and how new initiatives required can be actioned.
(iii) That the first meeting of the Group resulted in some positive actions
and some progress has already been made against the priority
objectives.
(iv) That an Action Plan has been created to record progress on the
objectives.
(v) That following participation of the University Disability Coordinators in
the NDAP conference, three new objectives have been added to the
Action Plan.
(vi) That an Institutional Policy would need to be developed to define
criteria to determine disability. The University will need to decide as
part of such a policy if the criteria follow only the requirements of the
Equality Act definition or whether the University will support all
students who have formally been assessed as having a disability
regardless of the severity of the impact. It was noted that criteria on
making such a decision would need to be explicitly defined, and that
the relevant bodies within the University with responsibility for the
decision-making process would need to be identified. It was noted
that whilst the University currently has a large number of procedures
and actions implemented in response to disability, it does not have
an up-to-date policy.
(vii) That an Institutional Policy/mechanism on the implementation of
reasonable adjustments and a process to formally monitor and
record those.
(viii) That an Institutional mechanism for appeals against decisions be
developed.
(ix) That
Andrew
Thompson,
Students
Union
Postgraduate
representative, will be attending the NUS Conference in May and will
be taking a list of questions from the Working Group for consideration
and response.
RESOLVED:
That the issue of an Institutional Disability Policy be addressed as soon
as possible by the DSA Group.
35/14-15 Equality and Diversity Network
REPORTED: (by the Chair of the Equality and Diversity Network)
(i)
That as discussed previously under agenda item 33/14-15, members
discussed mapping appropriate equality objectives to the University
strategy.
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(ii) That the ideas/suggestions now needed to be transferred into tangible
objectives.
36/14-15
Any Other Business
(a) Half-Day Away Event for Equality and Diversity Committee Members
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
That once the Committee timetable was available for 2015/16, a half-day
away event will be organized for the committee to focus on statutory
obligations and education/strategic priorities.
37/14-15
Date of Next Meeting
TO REPORT:
That the date of the next meeting of the Equality and Diversity Committee
will be announced once the Committee Timetable is available.
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