Our Approach

We have adopted a five stage approach to developing our Strategic Equality Plan (2024-2028): - 

1. Leveraging Experience: We conducted a critical review of our Strategic Equality Plan (2020-2024), building upon the valuable learnings and progress achieved.  We comprehensively assessed its strengths and areas for improvement. This critical self-evaluation ensured that the new plan built upon a solid foundation.
2. Aligning with the Landscape: Recognising the broader context, we undertook a detailed review of the relevant policy and legislative frameworks, including the LGBTQ+ Action Plan, Anti Racist Wales Action Plan, Social Justice Strategy 2021-2026, Fair Pay for Women Action Plan 2022-2025, and the Equality and Human Rights Action Plan 2023-2026. Our Plan was also developed in the context of the launch of the Moving to Inclusion Framework in September 2023.  This replaced the previous Equality Standards for Sport.  This ensured that our Strategy aligned with wider policy objectives and complied with relevant legislation.
3. Insight Led: Recognising the power of data to inform effective strategies, we reviewed our performance data and trajectories during the Strategic Equality Plan (2020-2024) period. We analysed data relating to staff and board diversity, pay gaps and the insight provided by our staff Equality, Diversity and Inclusion surveys.  This ensured that our future focused Strategic Equality Plan reflects our own insight and defined areas for improvement.
4. Incorporating Diverse Perspectives: We know that true inclusivity demands diverse voices.  We worked with a range of critical friends representing the full spectrum of protected characteristics. Their valuable perspectives enabled us to refine our approach and ensure our Strategic Equality Plan reflects the nuanced needs of our organisation and diverse perspectives.
5. Collaborating: Recognising the strength of collaboration, we actively engaged with the Wales Public Body Equality Partnership. We are committed to working with the partnership on shared areas of interest.  Our objectives are tailored to the specific needs of Sport Wales and our communities but remain linked to the overall objectives of the Partnership.

Our Strategic Equality Plan is inevitably centred around actions that Sport Wales can take within our own organisation.  However, our ambition is to use the levers available to us to support tackling inequality within the sector.  We believe that this will play a crucial role in delivering the Vision for Sport, whereby Wales becomes “an active nation where everyone can have a lifelong enjoyment of sport.”  In particular, some of our external facing actions are centred around how we can best utilise investment and funding to address inequalities.  As a learning organisation, we are committed to reviewing the balance and effectiveness of these actions throughout the life of the Strategic Equality Plan. 

We are unashamedly ambitious about what we want to achieve throughout the life of this Strategic Equality Plan.  However, our critical friends advised that it would be helpful to balance our ambition and timescales for delivery of actions to give greater confidence that our Plan is achievable.  We have, therefore, sought to categorise actions into the short and medium/long term.  This approach does not diminish the importance of the longer-term actions but instead recognises that some changes require planning and sequencing.