Is diversity enough?
The Charity Governance Code is designed to be a practical tool to help charities and trustees develop high standards of governance. The Code was launched in 2017 and is structured around seven core principles:
1. Organisational purpose
2. Leadership
3. Integrity
4. Decision making, risk and control
5. Board effectiveness
6. Diversity
7. Openness and accountability
Good governance is essential to ensure that charities are run to the highest possible standards, thus allowing its staff and volunteers to make the biggest possible difference to the communities or causes they care about. The Code is currently open for consultation, providing an important opportunity for the steering group to find out how people think the document could be strengthened.
The consultation provides opportunity for respondents to feedback on all the principles, but this blog will specifically focus on the consultation questions on diversity.
Charities are not representative of the people and communities they serve
It is a well-established fact that the volunteers and staff of most charities are not representative of the people and communities they serve. We also know that diversity is worse in executive and non-executive leadership positions then it is in the charity sector workforce as a whole. Taken on Trust, a 2017 research report by Charity Commission found that:
- 92% of trustees are white.
- Two thirds of trustees, chairs and treasurers are men.
- The average age of a trustee is 61.
- 51% of trustees are retired.
The Charity Governance Code has included a principle on diversity since it launched in 2017 but in this consultation we want to know if, in its current format, it is enough.
The two questions posed in the consultation document are:
“11) ii. Should the Diversity principle be renamed, for example to ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ or ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ to reflect good practice in this area? Please explain your response.
“iii. Is there any additional or different recommended practice that should be included as part of this principle regarding diversity? Please provide further information.”
I think the fact that the principle is just called ‘diversity’ is a shortcoming. Many people, in and out of the charity sector, use the terms equality, equity, diversity and inclusion interchangeably, but they are very different things. In its recent report The Pillars of Stronger Foundations, the Association of Charitable Foundations uses the following definitions (adapted from the work of the D5 coalition):
Diversity is defined broadly to include various elements of human difference, including gender, race and ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, disability and class. Nuanced definitions of diversity also recognise the intersectional nature of identity and the complex and cumulative ways in which different forms of discrimination (based upon these attributes) combine, overlap, and intersect
Equity involves the promotion of justice and equality of opportunity and outcomes within the procedures, processes and distribution of resources by institutions or systems. Tackling inequity requires an understanding of the underlying or root causes of disparities, both at the point of access and in terms of outcomes, within our society.
Inclusion refers to the degree to which diverse individuals are able to participate fully in all aspects of activity, including decision-making. While a truly ‘inclusive’ group is necessarily diverse, a ‘diverse’ group may or may not be ‘inclusive’
In May last year when ACEVO and Voice4Change England (V4CE) launched the Making Diversity Count project, Sanjiv Lingayah at V4CE wrote:
“A lack of diversity in charity sector employees and leadership should be seen as a symptom of a deeper malaise. It is the product of a system of interconnected rules, institutional practices and ideas that govern everyday life….As a sector, we need to work together to eliminate the diversity problem at the source and to embed rules, institutional practices and ideas that instead produce and reproduce equality, diversity and inclusion”
Diversity is a number, equity is an outcome and inclusion is a behaviour.
The support and influence of the board is essential in order build equitable and inclusive institutional practices that meaningfully address the charity sector’s diversity deficit. The Code currently provides a number of recommendations for boards working towards greater diversity, these range from considering the time and venue or meetings to offering reasonable expenses and offering communications in Braille or audio format. These recommendations are framed around two key outcomes:
“6.1 The board is more effective if it includes a variety of perspectives, experiences and skills.
“6.2 The board ensures that the charity follows principles of equality and diversity, going beyond the legal minimum where appropriate”
We want to know if you think these are the right outcomes.
In my experience the charities that create more inclusive policies and practice are those in which the board and the CEO share an understanding of both the institutional barriers that exist, and a commitment to change. The Charity Code of Governance is the framework that thousands of boards are already using to judge their effectiveness. We want the Code to offer a vision and set of recommendations that can be shared by all those who work and volunteer with charities. I believe that having this shared vision and practice contained within such a high profile document, one that is already seen as a hallmark of excellent practice, will create a better chance of achieving the change that is urgently required to make our sector more equitable.
The Governance Code of Practice before the 28 February 2020, more details available here
