We are committed to equality of opportunity and positive action to promote equality of opportunity. We believe that an Equal Opportunities Policy helps to ensure that there is no unjustified discrimination in the recruitment, retention, training and development of staff on the basis of gender, marital status, sexual identity, religious belief, political opinion, race, work pattern, age, disability or HIV/AIDS status, socio-economic background, spent convictions, trade union activity or membership, or on the basis of having or not having dependents.

We also believe that an Equal Opportunities Policy benefits employees and potential employees and helps achieve dignity at work and contributes to providing the best possible services to partners and clients.

Valuing Diversity
We progress an Equal Opportunities Policy through a Diversity strategy.

Diversity is the description of a range of visible and non-visible differences that exist between people. These include gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual identity, religion, education, age and family/marital and economic status amongst others. These differences can result in varying experiences, values, ways of thinking, behaving, communicating and working. Managing diversity is based on the belief that people should be valued as individuals for business reasons in addition to social and moral reasons.

Managing diversity can help to combat prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, harassment and unfair behaviour and support people to give of their best and to be aware of the effect that their words and actions can have on others.