Gender Equality Scheme 2008-2010

1. Introduction

The Equality Act 2006 has introduced new general duties on all public authorities to promote gender equality, following the principles of the Human Rights Act and specific legislation to prevent discrimination of grounds of race, disability, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.

This Gender Equality Scheme aims to promote equality of opportunity and treatment for all men and women working and studying at the College or applying to do so and to ensure equality of access to all services provided by the College.

The Scheme aims to foster an environment in which unlawful discrimination and harassment are not tolerated and where all members of the College community are encouraged to achieve their full potential.

The Scheme outlines the current position, identifies certain examples of steps taken to promote gender equality, and gives the Colleges key objectives, together with plans to promote gender equality over the next three years.

2. Summary of Key Objectives

(a) The College will build upon existing arrangements to foster gender equality in all aspects of College life and throughout the College community. (b) The College will take active steps to establish good gender balance in decision-making processes in all areas of the Colleges activities. (c) The College will continue research into gender balance in student admissions and progress (d) The College will encourage women to apply for academic posts.

3. The Legal Context

The legal definition of "public authorities" is very wide, including specifically all UK universities receiving public funding from HEFCE. The individual Colleges of Oxford University are separate private charities that carry out teaching and research in such close relationship to the University that they are likely to be public authorities too.

The Equality Act 2006 places a general statutory duty on all public authorities to have due regard to the following needs, when carrying out their functions:

To promote equality of opportunity between men and women. To eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment.

Specific Duties

To support progress in delivering the general duty, there are also specific duties imposed on most major public authorities. Although the Colleges of Oxford University have not been designated as subject to the specific duties, the University itself has been so designated and the Colleges wish to endeavour to meet similar standards. The specific duties imposed on each public authority in question include:

To prepare and publish a gender equality scheme setting out the gender equality objectives and showing how it will meet its general and specific duties. In formulating its overall objectives, to consider the need to include objectives to address any causes of any gender gap in pay. To gather and use information on the way that its policies and practices affect gender equality both in the workforce and in the delivery of services. To consult stakeholders and take account of relevant information in determining the gender equality scheme. To assess the impact of its current and proposed policies on gender equality. To implement the actions set out in the scheme over three years. To report on progress annually and to review the scheme triennially.

4. The College Context

The College was founded as a place of advanced study, learning, education and research. Since the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the College has taken a number of steps to ensure equality of opportunity and treatment for men and women (staff, students, and visitors). Specific steps include:

The first statute of the College (Statute 1.1) sets out the College's commitment to equality, including gender equality, and reads No distinction shall be made between members of the College, or between candidates for election or admission thereto, on grounds of sex, race, religious belief or political views.

As the College forms a constituent part of the University of Oxford, some of its responsibilities are shared and covered by joint arrangements.

The College publishes its regulations and practices to students and staff in the College Regulations booklet, the College Handbook and the Staff Handbook to which students must subscribe as a condition of admission to the College and staff as a condition of their contract.

Data are collected and analysed annually on applications for admission, applications for employment, training courses offered, scholarships and bursaries awarded and staff appointments. The analysis is considered by the Academic Committee, Equality Committee and General Purposes Committee and reported to the Governing Body.

The College has formally adopted the University's Code of Practice relating to Harassment and has established a Harassment Panel to investigate allegations of harassment. The General Meeting appoints a Student Welfare Officer annually, and a welfare panel of students of both sexes.

The gender equality scheme will be overseen by the Equality Committee, which reports via the General Purposes Committee to the Governing Body.

5. Key Objectives

(a) Build upon existing arrangements to foster gender equality

The College will review its policies systematically to assess for gender equality impact. The outcomes of these reviews will be reported to the Governing Body. The College will actively encourage its members to undertake specific training that will enable it to meets its responsibilities on equality of opportunity and enable it readily to meet the objectives of this scheme. Such training will include participation in University courses, as well as in courses offered for particular groups of staff.

(b) Establish good gender balance

The College has a well-established record of involving women in the corporate life of the College at a high level. Of the current six senior College Officers, two are women (the Chair of the Academic Committee and the Secretary to the Governing Body). The Governing Body comprises 55 Fellows of which 13 are women.

Both on statutory and on ad hoc committees, the College regards gender balance as an important consideration and strongly prefers to form committees on which men and women are equally represented. The College intends to build on this foundation to ensure that the inclusion of more women in decision-making is embedded in College practices.

(c) Research into gender gaps at admission and progress of students

The College continues to analyse its outcomes on admissions and progress for women and men.

6. Students and Gender Equality

(a) Graduate Admissions are organised centrally by the University. The College supports the University in its efforts to ensure gender equality in the admission of graduate students, and will support the University in its annual review of Graduate Admissions (http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/gender/ges.shtml).

(b) The College will continue to support initiatives such as the development of online training by the Oxford Learning Institute for academics involved in the admissions process.

(c) The College commits to allocating resources for non-academic student activities on a gender-neutral basis.

(d) The College monitors the experience of all students through annual Progress Review meetings. It encourages the participation of all students in all aspects of College life. The College fosters an atmosphere where intolerance on grounds of gender is unacceptable.

7. Staff and Gender Equality

For all staff, the College has adopted generous family leave arrangements and recognises wider family commitments and caring responsibilities by adopting flexible working arrangements.

The College provides nursery places for students and staff, operates a salary sacrifice scheme for childcare costs, and allows young children access to the College.

The College publishes its Gender Equality Scheme in the Staff Handbook.

The College has appointed both male and female Fellows of the College to the Harassment Panel.

Staff are encouraged to undertake training and professional development throughout their career. Such opportunities are available to all members of staff. The College seeks to ensure gender balance on all selection committees.

8. Monitoring and Reporting

The University monitors and publishes data on student admission and staff numbers.

The College monitors data on applications for College posts.

Responses from students, staff and visitors to the College are regularly sought in formal and informal ways. Such responses are audited for gender equality and issues raised in this area are reported to the relevant officers for action.

The Colleges Equality Action Plan requires that annual fora are held for students and staff where gender issues may be discussed.

9. Action Plan

(a) Carry out a gender audit and an equal pay audit and report to the Governing Body by Michaelmas Term 2008. (b) Review all current College policies to ensure gender equality objectives are being met and report to the Governing Body by Michaelmas Term 2008. (c) Allocate a training budget to enable the commitments in the plan to be fulfilled. (d) Review this Gender Equality Scheme in the context of any review of the Universitys Gender Equality Scheme.