The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. Working effectively with diversity is an essential part of the British Council’s work.
Our Equal Opportunity Policy commits us to ensuring that there is no unjustified discrimination in the recruitment, retention, training and development of staff on the basis of age, disability, gender including transgender, HIV/AIDS status, marital status including civil partnerships, pregnancy and maternity, political opinion, race/ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, spent convictions, trade union activity or membership, work pattern and on the basis of having or not having dependants or any other irrelevant grounds.
We aim to abide by and promote equality legislation by following both the letter and the spirit of it to try and avoid unjustified discrimination recognizing such discrimination as a barrier to equality of opportunity, inclusion and human rights.
The British Council is committed to:
- Understanding, valuing and working with diversity to enable fair and full participation in our work.
- Ensuring that there is no unjustified discrimination in our recruitment, selection and other processes.
- Ensuring action that promotes equality of opportunity, including conducting equality screening and impact assessments of policies and functions and progressing diversity action plans.
- Treating individuals with whom we work fairly and with dignity and respect.
- Playing our part in removing barriers and redressing imbalances caused by inequality and discrimination.
All staff are required to ensure their behaviour is consistent with policy. We also require that clients, customers, partners and suppliers are aware of this policy and operate consistently with it.
The British Council will review this policy at least every three years to reflect new legal and regulatory developments and ensure good practice.
The status of this document is British Council policy. It was approved by Martin Davidson, Chief Executive, on 1 November 2011 and is due for review on 1 November 2014.