Single Equality Scheme

The College mission is “to be the College of choice for students and businesses, providing first class skills development within a dynamic rural environment.”

Bishop Burton College, established in 1954, has long been an institution that embraces equality of opportunity. There is a clear recognition at all levels of the institution of the benefits that diverse client groups bring. This scheme identifies the commitment the College has made to ensure equality of opportunity for learners, staff, stakeholders and visitors to Bishop Burton College.

It responds to the statutory duties identified in the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and the Equality Act 2006.

In addition the scheme responds to the Employment Equality Regulations relating to Religion or Belief (2003), Sexual orientation (2005) and Age (2006) and whilst these regulations do not impose a positive duty to promote equality they do apply to the employment of our staff and therefore to the provision of our education, training and services.

The College’s single equality scheme action plan ensures regular monitoring of the activity identified within this scheme.

The College, through its Corporation, recognises the real educational and business benefits of having a diverse community of staff and learners who value one another and contribute to the achievement of the College's mission. The College is fully committed to providing an environment of equal opportunity for all its staff, learners and stakeholders whether potential or actual. To achieve this the College will not tolerate unfair or unlawful discrimination on the grounds of gender, colour, ethnicity, disability, religion, nationality, age, occupation, marital status, sexual orientation.

This scheme creates the framework for action across all equality strands and clarifies the commitment undertaken by the College to ensuring that the College does not discriminate against or disadvantage any individual or group. It also seeks opportunities to promote equality and diversity whenever possible. The scheme applies to all staff and learners who are involved in activities carried out in the name of the College. The scheme is reviewed annually. The action plan is monitored termly.

The Corporation of the College, in addition to relevant and regular updates, will receive a formal, annual report from the Deputy Principal (Academic).

The key activities undertaken by the College which allow it to meet the expectations of its duties are as follows:

These ensure all new and existing policies, procedures or developments are reviewed in line with the 6 equality strands. A College procedure on the use and writing of the impact assessments ensures a standard approach across the College.

The Equality and Diversity Committee is the main forum for monitoring the College’s progress against the scheme and subsequent reporting to the Senior Management Team. Data on recruitment, retention and achievement of learners is reported on and monitored by Senior Management and the Equality and Diversity committee throughout the year. Data on the College’s workforce is reviewed through the College Executive and reported on annually to Corporation.

Policy and Procedure are developed to reflect, where applicable, our commitment to equality and diversity whether relating to the employment and support of staff, as an educational provider or as a purchaser.

The College is committed to ensuring that the campus, buildings and facilities are accessible and provide a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Due to the varied nature of College business, access to the College site and its resources requires ongoing consideration, the action plan reflects the need to continually monitor this.

Publications and Promotion
The College provides, through a range of media, high quality, accessible information on the range of its teaching and learning provision and commercial services.

The College Learner Involvement Strategy, plus regular opportunities for feedback from the full range of stakeholders, allows the College to deliver services that have been developed with the support and input from internal and external stakeholders.

Legislative Context

Race Equality

The Race Relations Act 1976, as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 – referred to here as the Act – places a general duty on public authorities to promote race equality. Under the new duty, and through all relevant functions, public authorities are required to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful racial discrimination
• promote equality of opportunity
• promote good relations between people of different racial groups.

We are required to have and maintain a written statement of our policy for promoting race equality. We are required to assess the impact of our policies on staff and students of different racial groups and, in particular, on the attainment levels of students. We are required to monitor the admission and progress of students and the recruitment and career progression of staff. We are required to make arrangements for publishing our race equality statement and to publish annually the results of our monitoring. Our race equality scheme identifies how the College meets these requirements.

Disability Equality

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 – referred to here as the DDA 2005 – places a general duty on public authorities to promote disability equality. Under the new duty, and through all relevant functions, public authorities are required to have due regard to the need to:

• promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people
• eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the DDA
• eliminate harassment of disabled people that is related to their disabilities
• promote positive attitudes towards disabled people
• encourage participation by disabled people in public life
• take steps to take account of disabled people’s disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled people more favourably than others.

In addition, the DDA 2005 places specific duties on, inter alia, higher education institutions. We are required to publish a Disability Equality Scheme which demonstrates how we intend to fulfil our general and specific duties. We are required to involve disabled people in the development of the scheme. The Scheme must set out the way in which disabled people have been involved in the development of the Scheme, our methods for impact assessment and the steps we will take towards fulfilling the general duty (an ‘action plan’). The Scheme must also set out our arrangements for gathering information in relation to employment and our delivery of education and it must record our arrangements for using the information gathered, in particular in reviewing the effectiveness of our action plan and in preparing subsequent Disability Equality Schemes. We must review our Scheme every three years and we must publish a report setting out the steps we have taken under our action plan and the results of our information gathering.

The College meets these requirements in its Disability Equality Scheme.

Gender

The Equality Act 2006 sets out positive duty on public bodies to promote gender equality. Under the duty, and through all relevant functions, public authorities are required to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate discrimination and harassment that is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act and discrimination that is unlawful under the Equal Pay Act.
• promote equality of opportunity between men and women.

The College is subject to this duty and is required to produce a Gender Equality Scheme. The College is required to consult its employees and stakeholders in drawing up its equality scheme and to publish annual reports on progress. The College must review the Scheme at least every three years. The College is required to develop and publish a policy on developing equal pay arrangements between men and women and to conduct and publish gender impact assessments in employment, policy and services.

The College meets these requirements in its Gender Equality Scheme.

Freedom of Information

A publication scheme is a document which describes the information a public authority publishes, or intends to publish.

In this context, 'publish' means to make information available, routinely. These descriptions are called 'classes of information'. The scheme is not a list of the actual publication, because this will change as new material is published or existing material revised. It is, however, the public authority's commitment to make available the information described.

A publication scheme must set out the classes, or categories, of information published. It must also make clear how the information described can be accessed and whether or not charges will be made.

Bishop Burton College has adopted the model publication scheme developed for the further education sector and is therefore committed to publishing the information it describes.

The model is designed for further education colleges and sixth form colleges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The purpose of the model is to save institutions duplicating effort in producing individual schemes and to assist the public in accessing information from across the sector. However, to reflect the diversity in size and function of an institution, a number of optional classes of information are included.

As a result, models within the sector will vary slightly. Any option classes relevant to us have been included in our scheme.

Download the Bishop Burton Freedom of Information policy
The Bishop Burton Freedom of Information policy

Freedom of Information Act Charges - July 2005 onwards
£25 / hour

Minimum fee £25 as hours will not be subdivided

The exception to this rate is where a document is readily available where the charge will be £10 to cover administration costs.

If you have any questions regarding our policy please contact us and we can help you.