Notes of ECU Scottish HEI Liaison Group Meeting, 8 October 2015, University of Edinburgh

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Notes of ECU Scottish HEI Liaison Group meeting, 8 October 2015, University of Edinburgh

Attendance

Apologies: Ajit Trivedi (Dundee), Roz Caplan (RCS), Jill Hammond (GSA), Adrian Lui (GCU), Mohammed Hameed (Napier), Gail Carin-Levy (QMU), Janine Chalmers (Aberdeen).

1. Welcome and introductions

=ECU welcomed members and thanked the University of Edinburgh for hosting the meeting.

2. Notes of last meeting

=The group agreed the draft notes of the June meeting and these will be added to the ECU website.

3. ECU Briefing paper discussion

Ongoing work

=ECU had completed a review of HEIs’ performance of the Scottish specific duties reporting in April 2015. A briefing will be made available online, along with examples of practice across the reporting requirements.

=ECU had published an updated toolkit for embedding equality in outcome agreements to support HEIs to meet the enhanced SFC requirements on E&D, including conducting an equality impact assessment (EIA) of the outcome agreement.

=ECU provided an update on the development of SQA’s new PDA ‘Advancing E&D through inclusiveness’, which will be delayed in order to ensure the structure and content meet the needs of all users, including for training on disability needs assessment. A strategic partnership group is being established by SQA to consider implementation of the PDA. ECU confirmed that the group will have HEI representation. ECU continues to be involved in the Qualification Development Team.

=The governing bodies, equality and diversity research report had been well received and copies had been requested by 12 HEIs for all their governing body members. A handbook for governors will be produced in spring 2016, and ECU is exploring unconscious bias training for governors.

=The competence standards project is ongoing. The guidance has been published online. A short version of the guidance is being produced for quality leads, with QAA, and for academics with HEA. A series of webinars for academics with HEA will be delivered November-December. Disability and E&D practitioners are also invited.

Action: Members to advertise the webinars to academics. Disability and E&D practitioners to spread across the webinars.

=The articulation and equality project is almost complete; the datasets and briefing will be online by the end of the year.

=The Race Charter pilot is complete. A review is being conducted and the intention is for the charter to be officially launched inspring 2016. Members raised concerns about the feedback they had received, which they felt was not 100% valid or helpful, particularly in regards to proportionality and benchmarking for the Scottish context.

=Scottish HEIs had done well in the April round of the Athena SWAN Charter. ECU congratulated successful HEIs. Discussion was held around how representative the panels are and the consistency of the process.

Action: ECU to feedback to the group about diversity of the Athena and Race charter panels, geographic location of panelists, and the policy of using different panels for re-submissions.

=Attracting diversity to Scottish HEIs pilot year is complete and case studies will be online by the end of the year. ECU has opened a call for expressions of interest (EOI) for the next phase of the project, which will span the next three years and provide consultancy support and sector meetings to support more HEIs embed E&D in student recruitment.

Action: Members to submit EOIs by 16 October.

=WP and equality statistics and the benchmarking toolkit are making good progress. These will be published by the end of the year.

=A conference for Scottish colleges and HEIs will be held in April 2016. ECU advised members to look out for further details. The group suggested themes around employment, governance and students.

SNEIP update

=DB fed back from the second meeting of the Scottish National Equality Improvement Project (SNEIP), being delivered by Scottish Government to help the public sector better perform the Scottish specific duties. ECU is involved in the sounding board for the project as representative for the HE/FE sectors.

=This meeting brought together representatives from across public sectors to identify the key challenges in delivering the duties, with a focus on employee information.

=ECU had been asked to bring delegates for the HE/FE sectors. SLG were represented by Chris Sellers, Head of HR, University of the Highlands and Islands; Mohammed Hameed, Diversity Partner, Edinburgh Napier University; as well as Halena Gauntlett, Senior Policy/Analysis Officer, Scottish funding Council.

=Key issues identified and ideas suggested: a national campaign to encourage disclosure and influencing the development of the next round of census questions.

=The Scottish Government was also interested in sector priorities for national level initiatives.

Action: ECU to feed back to SG that HEIs would be interested in national level initiatives on improving Equality Impact Assessments as well as to support and encourage disclosure.

=There will be one more SNEIP event in October, with a focus on gender pay gap and occupational segregation.

=A national event/conference will follow in December. All will be invited.

Subscription model update

=In England, there will be no future HEFCE core funding and ECU is moving to a subscription model. ECU handed out the subscription offer pack for information.

=In Scotland, institutions will continue to pay for the Athena SWAN Charter and the Race Charter if they choose to take part, but access to all other resources and projects will remain free. HEIs will benefit from the changes ECU is making, e.g. a new customer records management system.

4. ECU review of specific duties performance 2015

=ECU presented its high-level review of HEIs’ performance of the specific duties reporting requirements in April 2015.

=The group discussed challenges such as gathering employee data in a small HEI, low disclosure rates, and choosing separate or combined reporting.

=The group would appreciate the following support in 2016:

–An event to help with the development of new sets of equality outcomes for 2017, including how to set aspirations outcomes, prioritisation for outcomes, undertaking engagement and consultation, and alignment with outcome agreements (an early autumn event would allow the latter).

–Work on positive action and developing aspirational equality outcomes and targets, using real examples.

=There was discussion of the timing of development of new outcomes. ECU advised that institutions could develop outcomes as soon as they wanted, to give sufficient time for engagement and consultation. Alignment with outcome agreements could happen subsequently in autumn 2016.

Action: ECU to circulate the presentation slides for its performance review.

5. HEA update

PH updated the group on recent work including:

=Publication of a trends and perspectives analysis, led by Professor Vicky Gunn of GSA, of E&D in learning and teaching in higher education (LTHE) will be published in November, with responses from ECU and Universities Scotland. An event will be held in spring to launch the work.

=ECU and HEA are publishing the papers from their joint conferences on E&D in LTHE in 2015 and 2016. These will be online in spring, with a hard copy of the summary.

=The HEA is launching a strategic enhancement programme for HEIs in Scotland. Participating HEIs will receive project-facilitated support for discipline-specific and/or L&T related enhancement initiatives that will embed E&D in the curriculum. A call for interest has been released, deadline 23 November.

=HEA has been commissioned to undertake research into approaches taken to tackling gender imbalances at the subject level in Scottish colleges and HEIs, linked to the SFC’s Gender Action Plan. ECU is supporting the research as a critical friend. The group agreed to be first points of contact in their institutions for the research, which will take place over the next couple of months.

=There was discussion of whether ECU could produce case law interpretation across the protected characteristics for E&D leads to use with academics and senior managers.

Action: ECU to look into what case law resources could be provided as part of its UK-wide programme.

6. Gender Action Plan - Scottish Funding Council

=Rachel Adamson from the SFC spoke to the group about the SFC’s gender action plan, including the background and drivers for the plan, its purpose and scope and how it will be linked to outcome agreements.

=The focus is on improving the work HEIs are already doing with schools to widen access, rather than on developing lots of new initiatives.

=The plan will have to deliver within a few years due to the political drivers for the work, however SFC recognises a long-term approach is required.

=There was discussion around how HEIs will be expected to influence gender balance of high demand professions, and SFC assured the group it is aware of the issues for these subjects.

=The group suggested the take-up of student services by gender be considered and that SFC work with learned bodies, e.g. for law.

7. Universities Scotland update

=The group welcomed the update paper produced by Universities Scotland, and gave positive feedback on its format and level of content.

=There was discussion around how frequently E&D is on agendas of Universities Scotland meetings.

=The challenge of very low disclosure rates for care leavers was discussed.

=It was suggested that student disability services be involved in any mental health work Universities Scotland undertakes.

=Universities Scotland is not undertaking specific work on Prevent at present, as UUK is leading this work. However, the Universities Secretaries group has set up a sub-group on this topic.

Action: Universities Scotland to provide update on UUK Prevent work at next meeting.

8. Member updates

=Each institution represented gave an update of current E&D activity highlights. Common themes included:

–Work and success with Athena SWAN

–International Women’s day events and initiatives

–Intentions to apply for ECU’s Attracting Diversity project

–E&D training for students

–Work on governing body diversity

–Revising structures for E&D e.g. committees

–Gender imbalance projects

–Aurora applications coordination

–Diversity calendars

–E&D champions

9. Queries from members

=ECU confirmed that Athena SWAN is not required for HR Excellence Awards, but actions/initiatives being undertaken for Athena SWAN could be used as evidence.

=There was discussion on the use of ‘MX’ instead of ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’ for trans people, but most HEIs had not adopted this.

=There was discussion of how to communicate in a targeted way with people who had disclosed their protected characteristics to offer support. The group felt that unless permission had been given targeted communication was not appropriate. However some use staff networks to communicate with specific groups.

Action: Group to send any further ideas on targeting communications to NA.

10. Next SLG meeting

=Dates for 2016 meetings will be circulated in October. They will be held in March, June and October. Volunteers to hosts will be sought.

Action: ECU to circulate dates for 2016 and members to volunteer to host.