Our internal structures and systems
We will look at our overall grant, investment and supply-chain arrangements, to ensure fairness, creativity and representation are at the heart of the way funding and contracts are awarded.
Through our respective frameworks and strategies, we will look at how we can ensure that we and our funded organisations have or are putting in place policies and procedures that support inclusion, in areas such as;
- Challenging racism and racist behaviour within our respective areas of responsibility
- Reviewing recruitment practices as well as the design of guidelines, programmes and interventions to help engage and attract more diverse people.
- Supporting ongoing training and education to understand racism and the impact it has on individuals and our sector.
- Engaging with relevant support networks and partners to challenge racism and championing anti-racist behaviours and practices.
Improving representation
Under-representation of diverse ethnic communities within sporting structures is a recurrent theme within the research.
We want to see increased representation at all levels of sport, whether that’s in participation, administration, volunteering or recruitment. We will therefore place greater emphasis on understanding the negative impact of racial inequalities in sport and how better representation can help create an inclusive and more diverse environment, reflective of UK society. We will work to embed the connection between improved representation and better strategic and operational decision making.
We will work with partner organisations to share good practice, paying particular attention to actions aligned to longer term equality, diversity and inclusion planning and implementation. We will be clear where we want our partners to do more, work with allies to create an environment that offers positive experiences, tackles discrimination and empowers individuals to reach their full potential.
People – our workforce
The research has identified issues which contribute to racial inequalities in the paid and voluntary workforce.It has also pointed to the need to improve practices such as the gathering and analysis of workforce data to inform action plans and determine measurable outcomes. We will therefore work to improve how and where data is collected across our workforce so that we can have a much clearer picture of the inequalities that have been identified through this review.
We will take a proactive approach to identifying the existing systems and structures currently acting as barriers for people from ethnically diverse communities and it will be our priority to make improvements to processes in workforce recruitment, development and retention. This will include embedding the approaches which mean we can begin to address this area from the perspective of individuals, groups, leadership and broader society.
Insight
The research has given us rich insight that should challenge us to rethink how we approach the delivery of sport. It has also highlighted that we need more and better information about diverse ethnic communities in sport if we are to be truly effective in understanding and tackling racial inequalities.
This includes further analysis of high-quality data sources that are yet to be fully investigated; exploring means of achieving greater granularity of data between and within different ethnic groups; developing further insights about the interplay of race, socioeconomic status and deprivation; and furthering our understanding of the lived experiences of ethnically diverse groups.
As a group of Sports Councils, we will look to be more systematic in the way we collate data; in the research we commission around inequality and inclusion; and in measuring and tracking the progress we are able to make. We will proactively engage and share reports with key partners, supporting them with digesting, understanding and reflecting on the findings with a view to challenging what this means for their own ways of operating.
Investment
What we invest in and how we invest are key factors in how we reach communities and drive change in engaging positively with sport and physical activity. We acknowledge that more should and will be done to get investment to where it is needed by working with new and existing partners as part of our wider priorities to tackle inequalities of which racial inequality is part.
We will work with communities to understand their needs and target investments to help address these needs. Where relevant, we will continue to invest in targeted programmes that reach ethnically diverse communities and continually measure the impact of our investments to ensure that it brings about the necessary change we want to see.