EDF STRATEGY 2016-2019
Consultation with members and stakeholders
Foreword
Inequality is increasing across a whole range of indicators nationally and globally.
The November 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review heralds an unprecedented
shift from national to local service delivery, and associated policy making. This
creates new challenges and opportunities for the people whose lives EDF and our
members seek to improve.
Against this backdrop, the unique role EDF plays has never been more important.
EDF acts as bridge between the research community, equality and human rights
organisations, the broader voluntary and community sector, policy-makers and the
public. By bringing organisations together to identify, understand and take action on
issues of common cause, we can have a collective impact that would not be
possible alone.
EDF has a solid track record and tremendous strengths that this review seeks to
build on. It is crucial to consider where we are now and how we need to adapt, to
make sure we are as effective as possible.
We want to know what all our stakeholders think. Will our proposals help EDF, our
members, and the broader network respond to the opportunities and challenges of
the current context? Have greater impact? Are we going far enough – for now?
Please do let us know.
Sarah Veale
Acting Chair
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
To respond
The consultation is open to members, associate members, observers, stakeholder
organisations and interested individuals.
Please complete the short survey by 14 January 2016. Alternatively, you may feed
in your views at the January forum meeting. We will also meet some individual
stakeholder organisations.
Context
We are consulting on our strategy for 2016-19. The context is shaped by
 The recession and the subsequent recovery, the UK government’s spending
reduction targets in response to the deficit, and protection of spending on health,
education and international development, and the Scottish and Welsh
governments’ pledges to protect key public services such as health.
 Demographic changes, including the effects of the global refugee and migration
crisis and related debate, and our ageing and increasingly diverse population.
 Increasing devolution at national level to Scotland and Wales, and regionally and
locally within England.
 The threat to continued membership of the EU.
 The Government’s equality and human rights agenda including proposed
replacement of the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights; and stated aim of
ending discrimination
 The 8 key challenges in the EHRC’s Is Britain Fairer? report.
 Internal factors including a more challenging funding environment for all NGOs.
 EDF’s increased activities and how to effectively coordinate and integrate them.
Vision and strategic goals
EDF’s board reviewed our vision and three strategic goals in January 2015, and
again in the post-election environment in October 2015. We believe they remain fit
for purpose and are not proposing to change them.
EDF’s vision is of a society in which
 everyone can fulfil their potential and make a distinctive contribution
 diversity is celebrated, people can express their identities free from the threat of
violence and everyone is treated with dignity and respect
 your chance to flourish is not limited by who you are or where you come from.
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
Our three strategic goals are:
1. To build greater consensus on the value of equality and human rights in Britain.
2. To make a reality of equality and human rights by informing policy and practice.
3. To build the capacity of the voluntary and community sector to advance equality
and human rights.
Priority topics
EDF has an essential role to play in bringing people together, across sectors and
disciplines, and foster understanding and action across the full equality and human
rights spectrum. We will continue to fulfil this role through forum meetings, our digital
offer, research and knowledge exchange activities, the APPG on Equalities, etc.
However, the urgency of the agendas and the need to have a meaningful impact, all
within constrained resources, indicate the need for a tighter focus on a limited
number of priorities at any given time. These priorities will be reviewed regularly,
and as noted we will retain some capacity for broader, responsive work. However,
we believe that bringing our resources together – and working collaboratively with
others – around a limited number of priority topics in a strategic way is an important
shift we need to make at this point.
It will obviously be essential that the issues chosen reflect what members and
associates need from EDF, considering the following criteria:
 What we as EDF are best placed to do, and where we can add value.
 Where there are significant opportunities to influence and achieve change, with
and on behalf of members.
 What members want EDF to do, and our capacity to deliver effectively.
The selection of issues will be influenced by the findings of the EHRC’s Is Britain
Fairer? review published in November, Ministerial and Government Equalities Office
priorities, and the Comprehensive Spending Review.
We are consulting on this change in approach, which issues should be prioritised for
focused activity under the new operating model (see below), and what EDF should
do in each space.
We have identified potential priority topics, from the input from EDF members at the
May and October 2015 meetings.
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
a. Human rights: We will continue to focus on building greater public support for
human rights; and preserving the Human Rights Act, the rights it enshrines, and the
supporting mechanisms.
b. Developing progressive equality narratives, and supporting the sector to use
them. This would help protect the sector’s voice and agency. It would strengthen the
network’s impact by adding strategic communications on equality, human rights and
social justice to EDF’s core activities, joining it up with our research and policy
influencing work – see the section below on the operating model. This would enable
our members and their members in turn to
 share and develop influencing skills and strategic communications skills
(including framing and messaging) that work in the current context.
 build capacity to collaborate on a cross-strand basis.
c. The cumulative and combined impacts of austerity (including welfare, social care
and legal aid) across the protected characteristics: identifying and quantifying the
impacts and telling the human stories.
d. Access to Justice: ensuring people can know and use their rights; raising
awareness of existing provision and gaps in provision, including the progressive
erosion of the means of accessing justice and its impact. Developing proposals to
reduce or limit these difficulties in accessing justice.
e. Employment: addressing employment gaps and overcoming barriers to
employment and progression across all discrimination grounds.
f. Devolution of decision-making, service provision and funding from central to local
government; the impact on women and equalities and supporting members to work
within the changing context.
g. Public Sector Equality Duty: encouraging and supporting use of the duty.
Consultation Questions 1- 3
1. Do you agree with the proposal to identify and work on a limited number of
priority topics? Yes/No/Don’t know/Comments
2. Please rank potential topic numbers 2-7 in order of importance.
3. For topics 1-7, tell us a. where applicable, what your organisation is planning to
do, as far as you can share; and b. what you would like to see EDF doing.
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
Operating model
The Board agreed that in order to strengthen EDF’s core and respond effectively to
the changing context, we will update and streamline our operating model.
The current model has a ‘core’ of staff and ‘core’ activities (the traditional EDF
activities including meetings, policy influencing, dissemination and capacity
building), and the Research Network and Equally Ours human rights strategic
communications initiative. These operate very well but quite separately.
The agreed updated model, which has the strong support of the staff team, is to
bring these elements to work together focused on a limited number of chosen key
issues. This would help us achieve greater impact; strengthen the network’s USP as
a pan-equality and human rights bridge between sectors to achieve change; and
increase the prospects of sustainability.
The key elements in more detail:
 Research – developing the research network’s role in bringing together a wide
range of academic, think tank and NGO research (including research produced
by our membership).
 Analysis – of relevant legal and policy developments or proposals and what they
mean in practice
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
 Communications – making research and analysis accessible and usable by
different audiences. Applying strategic communications methods to target
persuadable audiences and influence what they think or do.
 Influence – bringing the above three elements together in the right combination to
influence policymakers and/or public attitudes
Another way to think of this is that these elements help EDF create a bridge
between the research community and the voluntary and community sector, and
between the VCS and practitioners, policy-makers and the public.
In practice this means:
 Staff and projects would work in a more integrated way on the priority topics. We
have already begun the process, which we anticipate will take a year to fully
operationalise.
 Articulating and integrating our digital strategy.
 Addressing other important topics through member meetings, website etc.
 Ring-fencing some capacity to allow us to be flexible and responsive to changes
or new developments.
Consultation question 4
4. Do you have any insights to share about our updated operating model?
Membership
We want EDF to be a vibrant network that helps our members achieve more. We
are considering opening up membership in a number of ways, to enable more
organisations to contribute to and benefit from the network, and to have greater
reach.
Currently
 Full membership is open to national Non-Governmental Organisations who are
committed to EDF’s aims and objects and actively contribute to EDF activities.
Members are always consulted on joint policy positions and can opt-out where
appropriate.
 Associate membership is open to local, regional, national voluntary not-for-profit
organisations working on equality and human rights. Associates are not consulted
on joint policy positions, but can opt-in to support them.
 Statutory organisations and government departments can be observers.
 There is no membership for consultancies and contractors, and the options for
private sector organisation are under-developed.
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749
We will approach this in a staged way, starting with the potential expansion of full
membership, which is included in this consultation. Over time we will also clarify and
develop what we offer to members; and consider additional ways for people and
organisations to support our important work.
Consultation question 5
5. Should full membership be opened up to local and/or regional NGOs? Or to local
and/or regional NGOs that have a national perspective? Please comment on
what the benefits or drawbacks would be.
Note, this would be on the same basis as national NGOs ie that they commit to the
aims and actively contribute to EDF activities.
Consultation question 6
6. Do you have any other comments?
Review process and timeline
14 Oct 2015
15 Oct 2015
30 Nov 2015 –
14 Jan 2016
Jan-Feb 2016
From April 2016
Initial discussion with members to reflect back their postelection views and update in light of subsequent developments
Board discussion
Consultation with members and key stakeholders: survey and
meetings. 6 weeks excluding Christmas and New Year break.
Board sign-off
Implementation
Equality and Diversity Forum, Tavis House, 1-6 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9NA
Tel + 44 (0) 20 303 31454, email info@edf.org.uk, website www.edf.org.uk
Registered charity number 1135357 and company number 06464749