9. Success in Promoting Equality

In order to be an exemplar organisation, our Equality Scheme will continue to evolve with emerging challenges. However, the Assembly Commission has a number of notable recent successes in promoting equality and demonstrating good practice and this section highlights some of these.

Equality Schemes

The Race Equality Scheme was approved in 2005. The Disability Equality Scheme and Action Plan were approved in December 2006 and a draft Gender Equality Scheme was prepared over the summer of 2007. These Schemes have been reviewed and outstanding actions have been subsumed into this Scheme and Action Plan.

Establishment of an Equality and Access Team

The Equality and Access Team was established in May 2007 and works with colleagues across the organisation to ensure that equality and human rights issues are mainstreamed into the work of the Assembly Commission.

Staff Networks

In an effort to increase the support available to disabled staff and to LGBT members of staff, we have established internal networks. The self-managed groups exist to support staff, to raise awareness and to feed into the development of corporate policies and procedures. We are also hoping to establish a network for ethnic minority staff.

Awareness-raising of equality-related issues and events

A number of equality-related articles have appeared on the intranet newspage and in the staff newsletter, 'The Slate’.

British Sign Language (BSL) classes and events

The Assembly Commission has secured BSL tuition, awareness
raising and training for our staff. We are also holding events to raise
awareness of BSL and issues affecting people with hearing impairments.

Monitoring

In February 2008, we carried out a staff equality survey to profile our workforce from an equality perspective and collected statistical data across the equality strands. The survey also provided an opportunity to identify any equality-related issues that might affect staff.

Hosting events

The Senedd and Tŷ Hywel have hosted a number of equality-related events, including report launches, awareness-raising and celebratory events for representative groups across the equality strands. Most notably, in August 2008 the Assembly Commission hosted Stonewall Cymru’s Diversity Champions’ Network seminar on the theme of 'Ensuring Supplier Diversity’. The event was successful in that it was the most attended Network seminar to-date in Wales and importantly, it provided an opportunity to network and share best practice between the public and private sectors.

Recruitment and Outreach Aimed at Ethnic Minority People

We have developed initiatives to increase outreach and recruitment aimed at ethnic minority people, including seconding an employee from a voluntary sector organisation who is advising how to improve our links with ethnic minority people; work placements from schools with high numbers of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds; and advertising external posts at Cardiff South Enterprise Centre whose customer base is largely made up of ethnic minority people. We have also organised tours and briefings to coincide with any large recruitment schemes to encourage applications.

External Review of our Recruitment Practices and the Impact of these on Increasing Representation of Ethnic Minority People in our Workforce

The review consisted of analysing existing policies and practices within the Assembly Commission and making recommendations which would lead to both measurable and meaningful outcomes and increase representation of ethnic minority people in our workforce. Consideration of these recommendations is ongoing.

Operation Black Vote Assembly Member Shadowing Scheme

The Assembly Commission has administered an Assembly Member shadowing scheme which involved Black, Asian and ethnic minority people shadowing Assembly Members. The Scheme has been a tremendous success, with participants continuing to develop their political careers, whether on a community, local authority, National Assembly or Westminster level. The Scheme also won the Hansard Society Democracy Award at the Channel 4 Political Awards.  We are currently scoping the design of a multi-strand Assembly and Local Government Mentoring Scheme.

Internet Project - Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
Compliance and Accessibility

The new contract awarded for our Internet site ensured that DDA compliance and accessibility considerations were paramount. An external accessibility audit of our website will be conducted to ensure that our website continues to meet the needs of our users.

Access Adjustments in the Senedd

The original Senedd Access Report has been re-examined and we have taken into account feedback from disabled members of the public who have visited the Senedd.  We are working with the building’s architects and access consultants to take forward actions to improve access to the building.

Benchmarking Standards

The Assembly Commission aims to achieve a more diverse workforce. By using the symbols of benchmarking standards on job adverts and applications forms, we can demonstrate that we welcome applications from all people in Wales. We have acquired the following standards:

We seek to gain standards for the other equality strands to further demonstrate our commitment to equality.

Stonewall’s Recruitment 'Starting Out’ Guide and Workplace Equality Index

The Assembly Commission is included in Stonewall’s 'Starting Out - Lesbian and Gay Recruitment Guide’. The Guide is aimed at students and those wishing to change their careers, to advise them of gay-friendly employers.

We received an encouraging rating in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index for 2008 and have already put actions in place to improve our standing in subsequent years.

Inter-Parliamentary Equality Network

The Equality and Access Team is establishing an inter-parliamentary equality network, working with counterparts in other UK administrations to discuss and share best practice.

Disabled Users’ Forum

We have established contact with a group of disabled service users across Wales who are helping us develop policies and procedures which promote equality of opportunity for disabled people.

Commonwealth Day

Each year, the National Assembly for Wales hosts an event marking Commonwealth Day. Pupils and international students from across Wales attend to take part in debates, performances and exhibitions celebrating equality, diversity and human rights.