The Forces Employment Charity is committed to the principle of equity of opportunity for all in employment and service delivery. We take pride in our increasingly diverse community and all the cultural richness that it brings with it. This statement outlines our intention to promote equity, diversity and inclusion among our staff and clients.
Our people, whether client-facing or in a supporting role, are amazing – they inspire great ideas, drive new plans forward and help make the Forces Employment Charity a fantastic place to work.
Ensuring that we are always recruiting, retaining, and promoting a diverse mix of colleagues who are representative of the diversity in our local communities gives us a great opportunity to have access to a broad range of ideas and allows us to give you the wide mix of services you know and expect from us.
The Forces Employment Charity recognises that certain groups in society have historically been disadvantaged on account of unlawful discrimination they have faced based on their; race, gender (Including gender reassignment), physical or mental disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic origin, marital or parental status, colour, or age. We will put in place a range of actions to eliminate prejudice, unlawful discrimination, and victimisation within the communities we serve and our workforce.
We want to see a strong sustainable and cohesive community. We will continue to develop and promote policies and systems that make sure that the communities we serve, and our workforce are not unlawfully discriminated against.
Our aims are to:
We recognise the value of diversity within the community and our workforce and the contribution made by people from different backgrounds.
We are committed to ensuring that our services meet the varied and complex needs of people living and working in the communities we serve.
Our commitment is supported by a legal duty to provide all services and employment opportunities fairly, without unlawful discrimination. We believe we have a strong moral and social duty to recognise any unlawful discrimination, take steps to challenge prejudice and discrimination and promote equity and inclusion.
We are committed to promoting equity as this recognises everyone’s needs and circumstances are different and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
Where appropriate we will work in partnership, with other organisations and local voluntary and community groups to provide services which promote equitable opportunities to all by:
The Forces Employment Charity is an equity opportunities employer and service provider. To support this public commitment managers and staff play a key role in ensuring that our services and practices do not give rise to unlawful discrimination of any kind and that we have a shared understanding of the relevant issues and how best to deal with them.
All employees of the charity are expected to comply with our values of promoting equity, diversity and inclusion and treat colleagues and clients with dignity and respect. This commitment must be evidenced in practice.
Managers are expected to:
The Forces Employment Charity wants to meet the aims and commitments set out in this statement. This includes not discriminating under the Equality Act 2010. The equality and diversity questionnaire is intended to help us maintain best practice and identify barriers to workforce equity, diversity and inclusion.
The Forces Employment Charity needs your help and co-operation to enable us to do this. The questionnaire is optional at the point of registration. The information on the questionnaire will be used for evaluation purposes only to ensure we are meeting our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and will play no part in the registration or service delivery.
The intention of the analysis is to establish if there are different success rates between genders, people of different sexual orientations, ages, different ethnic backgrounds or faiths, and people with disabilities. If there are differences in these areas, it will enable action to be taken to ensure that no group is treated unfairly.
All questions are optional. You are not obliged to answer any of these questions but the more information you supply, the more effective our evaluation will be. All information supplied will be treated in the strictest confidence.
With the help of feedback from our community groups, clients, and staff, we will continue to develop arrangements to review and evaluate the effectiveness of our employment and service delivery policies. If our evaluation reveals any gaps in our policies, we will take necessary action.
Head of Compliance
8 September 2023
