Equality Bill has the potential to accelerate positive workforce trends

Equality Challenge Unit today (25 February 2010) welcomed HEFCE's assessment of the higher education sector's progress on equality and acknowledgement of the significant equality challenges still facing the sector, as set out in the funding council's report on the higher education workforce.

The higher education equality body called for universities and colleges to mainstream equality and diversity issues as they develop staffing policies to meet future workforce challenges facing the sector.

Levi Pay, ECU Director of Policy, said:

'Four years on from the last HEFCE workforce overview report, it is clear, when it comes to equality issues, that the higher education sector has shown steady progress on a number of fronts.

The HEFCE report is a valuable snapshot of where the sector now stands on crucial issues including equal pay, flexible working and its readiness for the possible removal of the default retirement age. It notes the increasing willingness of higher education institutions to embrace cultural and behavioural change and that many institutions are undertaking excellent work to address equality issues - work which must continue to develop and be adequately resourced.

At the same time, patterns of under-representation and disadvantage do remain, such as the gender pay gap and the low levels of disabled staff, black and minority ethnic staff and female staff at senior levels.

If the enhanced 'positive action' provision remains within the Equality Bill, as it makes its way through the final stages of the parliamentary process, this may provide just the mechanism that is needed to deliver a step change in relation to the composition of the most senior levels of our sector's workforce.

We look forward to working with HEIs to ensure they make effective use of the new legislation to accelerate the delivery of equality.'