Gender Equality Scheme

(April 2007)

Contents

• 1. Statement of Commitment
• 2. Stakeholder Involvement
• 3. Key Challenges
• 4. Priority Actions

Appendix 1 - The work of Charity Commission Directorates
Appendix 2 - What is Gender Equality?

1. Statement of Commitment

The Charity Commission is committed to making sure that equality of opportunity is an integral part of all that it does.

We expect everyone in the Commission to understand and meet their responsibilities under the Gender Equality Scheme. We take seriously our duties as an employer, and understand the additional benefits that good diversity management brings for all our employees. We also seek to use this scheme to demonstrate our on-going commitment to meeting the needs of the men, women and transgender people who use our services, and the needs of all registered charities, including those with gender-related aims. As a public body we have a duty to promote equality of opportunity for these groups whether they are customers, or employees or those who wish to participate in public life.

This Gender Equality Scheme sets out how we undertake all our functions with regard to those responsibilities, in particular working towards eliminating harassment and unlawful discrimination on the grounds of gender and promoting gender equality, and demonstrates how we measure the impact of our policies, procedures and practices.

Although this scheme has been drawn up in consultation with a sample of our employees and a number of charities, we are aware that we need to consult more widely with our own staff and our external customers. This will be an on-going process.

Andrew Hind Chief Executive

Suzi Leather Chair

Tess Woodcraft Board Diversity Champion

2. Stakeholder Involvement

In developing this scheme we have sought views both internally from our staff and externally from our customer network and charities whom focus on supporting a particular gender.

Internal views have been captured through representatives of the Commission’s long-established Diversity Steering Group (DSG), which includes people from all key business areas of the Commission, the newly established Carers’ and Parents’ Forum, and both Commission managers and Departmental Trade Union representatives have been involved in developing the scheme.

Trustees from charities which focus on gender related issues were also involved in our initial impact assessment and formulation of action plans, in particular with regard to the services we provide to our customers and the specific needs of gender-related charities. However we recognise that this is an area we should develop further over the next twelve months and this will be a priority for us. We will carry out full impact assessments where we have identified that there may be a disproportionate impact on gender attached to any of our actions.

We will continue to work with all these representatives to ensure that we meet our responsibilities as well as support change and improvement in the way that we work and regulate the sector.

3. Key Challenges

The initial diversity impact analyses have enabled us to identify the following key challenges that we need to address:

3.1 Governance:

• Charities require more guidance on the relationship between charity law and equality provision. Where case work issues affect gender we need to make umbrella bodies aware of the issues.
• We are committed to re-designing and enhancing our on-line service so that it becomes an instant and powerful resource to communicate with all trustees and stakeholders. Our website could include web-based discussion groups on equality issues and signposting to organisations with gender expertise.
• The Commission publishes research reports on a variety of subjects. Equality and diversity reports should be provided where appropriate as part of our portfolio of subjects. This could, for instance, include the gender representation of trustees and their selection. More research needs to be carried out into specific gender related requirements of some organisations and their legality.

3.2 Representation and Decision Making

• We are currently engaged in defining best practice and capturing knowledge from the larger, most influential charities. We need to ensure that we are equally involving and consulting smaller charities with more specialist knowledge of gender issues. We also need to ensure that the Customer Service Network Group is representative and contains expertise in gender issues.

3.3 Employment

• Pay and reward: In the Charity Commission there is a 9% difference in overall average pay between men and women, which can be explained by length of service. Nationwide the gender pay gap for full-time staff is 17.2%. Our last Equal Pay Audit was carried out in October 2006. We will continue to monitor equal pay with the aim of ensuring that any difference results from genuine material reasons. In particular we will monitor reasons for resignation and career breaks disaggregated for gender.
  
• Occupational Segregation: 56% of our staff are women and 44% are men. There are more women in the lower grades of the organisation (PB1-3) than men (60% women, 40% men). However, more women than men have been promoted over the last few years (64% women, 36% men). At middle management level (PB4-6), there are more men than women (52% men, 48% women). At senior management level (SCS), men are better represented than women (58% men, 42% women). We will continue to monitor this situation.
  
• Flexible working:  19% of our employees are working part-time.  80% of these are women and 69% of these are at the lower grades (PB1-3).  We will monitor the numbers of part-time workers with caring and parental responsibilities and develop clear guidelines to enable managers to support flexible working in line with business needs.
  
• Recruitment:  Data between 2004-2006 shows that the Commission tends to receive more applications from women than men (9.5% more) and that more women are passing the sift than men (11% more).  Women also tend to do better at passing the interview board than men (14% more).  This has resulted in slightly more women being offered posts than men (3% more).  The overall picture shows that women fare better than men in the selection process.  This may be due to gender bias and further research and analysis is needed.
  
• Training:  Data between 2005 & 2006 shows that women have received more training days than men (65% of training days were for women, 35% for men).  However, staff tend to receive more training up to PB5 and the differential decreases beyond this at higher grades.
  
• Transgender staff:  There is currently no policy in place for the support of staff wishing to undergo a gender transition or the recruitment of staff that have done so.  We will formulate such a policy in consultation with organisations of transgender.
  
• Harassment:  The Charity Commission currently provides Harassment Support Officers as a first point of contact for those experiencing or witnessing harassment or sexual harassment, these officers receive training for the role they undertake and their availability is signposted on the Commission’s intranet ‘Connect’.  We will review the provision of this service and implement changes to ensure that all staff have access to supporters of either gender. 

4. Priority Actions

Priority action items are listed under each Directorate. Progress will be monitored by the Commission’s Diversity Steering Group on an annual basis, and they will report the results to the Board.

We will publish a report on our website annually reporting on progress against action plans and the scheme will be formally reviewed and a revised edition published every three years.

4.1 Legal and Charity Services Directorate

We will:

• Ensure that we are equally involving and consulting smaller charities with more specialist knowledge of gender issues.  We will also ensure that the Customer Service Network Group is representative and contains expertise in gender issues.
• Monitor external services to customers through our customer satisfaction surveys recording the demographics of the customers with whom we are working and gender disaggregated information on the experience of our service, satisfaction rates, service outcomes and numbers of complaints.

4.2 Policy and Effectiveness Directorate

We will:

• Consider including web-based discussion groups on equality issues and signposting to organisations with gender expertise on our website. 
• Provide guidance for charities on the relationship between charity law and equality provision.  Where case work issues affect gender we will make umbrella bodies aware of the issues.

4.3 Charity Information and Corporate Services Directorate

We will:

• Monitor the numbers of part-time workers with caring and parental responsibilities, review and develop clear guidelines to enable managers to support flexible working within the business context.
• Conduct further research and analysis into possible gender bias in recruitment and selection and take appropriate and proportionate action if necessary.
• Put a policy in place for the support of staff wishing to undergo a gender transition or the recruitment of staff that have done so. 
• Continue to monitor equal pay with the aim of ensuring that any difference results from genuine material reasons.  In particular we will monitor reasons for resignation and career breaks disaggregated by gender.
• Ensure that all staff have access to support (of either gender) when addressing harassing behaviour.
• Engage with and support the Carers’ and Parents’ Forum.
• Review flexible working arrangements within the Commission.

Details of the work undertaken by each of the Commission’s Directorate’s can be found in Appendix 1.

Appendix 1

Relevancy Assessment of different functions in the Commission.

 

 

 

 

 

Governance

Governance responsibilities for strategy and future direction of the Charity Commission rest with its Board. The Board comprises the Chief Commissioner and four non-executive Commissioners.

Corporate decision-making that affects the day-to-day operation of the Commission is delegated to the Executive Group which is chaired by the Chief Executive and whose membership comprises the Executive Directors. The Chief Executive and Directors' duties include operational management of the Commission's business, implementing the programmes and policies arising from Board decisions and ensuring effective service delivery. The Chief Executive is also Accounting Officer and responsible for ensuring financial probity and the achievement of value for money.

The constitution and proceedings of the Charity Commissioners are governed by section 1 of, and the first Schedule to, the Charities Act 1993. Under the Act, the Commissioners have the general function of promoting the effective use of charitable resources by:

• encouraging the development of better methods of administration;
• giving charity trustees information or advice on any matter affecting the charity; and investigating and checking abuses.

The Board and Executive group are supported by a Governance team and Secretariat. Both these functions are deemed to have a high impact on our duty to ensure gender equality.

Policy and Effectiveness

The Policy and Effectiveness consists of four business areas the first two of which have been identified as having a high impact on gender equality:

• Bringing together and developing the Commission's policy agenda, with the aim of delivering policies which reflect charities' experience and regulatory requirements, enabling charities to work more effectively;
• Leading the delivery of the Commission's public affairs and communications activities, including the editorial control of the Commission’s web site and publications;
• Improving the performance of charities by helping to define best practice and capture such knowledge from our casework, by partnership working and by encourage innovation and collaborative working across the sector; and
• Fulfilling a strategic planning role across the Commission, monitoring performance and financial spend against our targets.

Legal and Charity Services

Legal Services provides specialist legal services to the Commission, particularly but not exclusively in the areas of charity law and practice. Its expertise supports the Commission in enabling charities to maximise their impact and in ensuring compliance with legal obligations. It provides a rational basis for the development and modernisation of charity law.

It maintains legal expertise and a centre of legal resources in charity law and practice and contributes to the development of the law and practice in a modern context. This assists charities both to be recognised and to operate in the context of changing social and economic circumstances increasing charities’ efficiency and effectiveness.

Assisting charities in law and practice has been identified as having a high impact on gender equality, whilst specialist legal services to the Commission and Board and contributing to the development of charity law have been identified as low impact.

Customer Service

This team takes a lead on customer service and quality issues across the Commission. This includes the handling of complaints and decision reviews, seeking and using internal and external feedback to continuously improve our services. This team coordinates the Customer Service Network of key customers and other stakeholders. The network includes a representative group of charities, including charities working with people with gender issues, who are consulted on key policy changes and service delivery options. All of the work which Customer Services undertakes is deemed to have a high impact on promoting gender equality.

Charity Services

Charity Services brings together our one to one services to charities. It delivers a variety of functions and coordinated services to charities to enable them to improve their effectiveness in carrying out their work in the community. All of these activities have a high impact on gender equality.

The Division is concerned with those aspects of service delivery which require a discrete, specific and identifiable engagement with charities and consists of 6 separate units:

Charity Commission Direct

Based in Liverpool, Charity Commission Direct has been established to provide a single point of entry for all enquiries and requests for services coming into the Commission either by e mail, telephone, letter, and fax. It includes the Contact Centre which handles about a quarter of a million incoming calls from customers each year.

The role of Charity Commission Direct is to:

• Assess all incoming correspondence coming into the Commission;
• Manage the allocation of that correspondence by:
  • transferring enquiries to the correct organisation on day of receipt if they are not relevant to the Commission;
  • checking for urgency, importance and steering the enquiries to the relevant section of the Commission;
  • giving advice, information and support to customers who contact the Commission with routine enquiries;
• Manage and develop the Contact Centre; and
• Lead in the evolution of e-business in enhancing our public e-mail management systems.

This division has been identified as having a high impact on gender equality.

Registration

This team determines whether organisations are charitable and registers those organisations which fully meet the criteria. This has a high impact on gender equality. We intend to move towards a system of on-line registration.

Advice and Orders

The Advice and Orders Unit aims to help charities fulfill their charitable objectives, operate efficiently and avoid exposing themselves to undue risk. The need for advice may be identified by charities themselves or by the Commission as a result of monitoring, visits, local surgeries or whilst we are dealing with other matters. Some of this work inevitably has a medium impact on gender, and more research needs to be done to establish our impact on the community.

Quick Response Unit

The Quick Response unit provides regulatory advice and consents which are capable of swift resolution for charities with an income up to £5m per year. Our aim in this is to use information about our customers to measure the potential impact our work has on gender.  The division has a medium impact on gender equality.

Large Charities Unit

The Large Charities Unit (LCU) manages and delivers the Commission’s advice and support services to all large charities whose annual income exceeds £5million. These 1000 charities represent around 60% of the sectors annual income, and many of them are key disability charities such as RNIB and Scope. Impact here is therefore high.

The LCU aims to increase the effectiveness, and maximise the impact, of these large charities by:

• delivering consistent, high quality and proportionate service;
• giving appropriate attention to high profile, complex and sensitive cases; and
• working to develop and maintain relationships with large charities.

This division has a medium impact on gender equality.

Compliance and Support

Compliance and Support Division is comprised of 3 units: Assessment, Mainstream and Inquiries and Intensive casework.

All complaints and apparent causes for concern, whether from internal or external sources, are examined by the Assessment Unit. If the Assessment Unit is satisfied that the problems exist it will decide, on the basis of risk, what is the most suitable and proportionate form of intervention. In most cases trustees are willing to co-operate and work with the Commission to restore their charities to proper standards of management, without the use of legal powers. These cases are handled by the Mainstream Case team.

However, where it appears that the trustees either cannot or will not co-operate, and that our powers in sections 8 or 18 of the Charities Act may need to be used, a formal inquiry may be opened so that access to the powers is available if necessary. These cases are handled by the Inquiries team.

In exceptional cases, where there are serious grounds for concern and perhaps significant media interest, the case may be referred to the Intensive Casework team. This category of work automatically includes all cases in which a Receiver and Manager has been appointed.

Compliance and support work generally has a low impact on broader disability equality issues, but in some specific cases there is potential medium impact on gender.

Charity Information and Corporate Services

Charity Information is concerned with the transparency and accessibility of information to the sector and the public about charities. It has a medium impact weighting.

Information Quality

As we develop ways to share and present information, our Information Quality team will focus on improving the quality and integrity of accounts and report information produced by charities by organising educational events, mapping trends and providing more targeted information to better inform the Commission about charities' income and activities. We will explore reasons behind good practice and poor levels of submission. The Division will conduct annual assessments of accounts information for all charities with income over £5m with significant sampling across all income groups. We will continue to develop systems that support our service to customers which includes internal electronic access to key charity information.  This division has a medium impact on gender equality.

Information Compliance

The Information Compliance team ensures that charities meet, and where possible improve upon, their statutory obligations to file timely trustee reports, accounts and annual returns. The information in these documents is used to maintain our public register of charities and we make key data available both internally and to the wider public.

We are developing ways to improve charity transparency and accountability to the public by more timely submission of reports, accounts and annual returns. We will improve our advice and guidance to help charities comply with their legal obligations and encourage early filing.

The Annual Return will be reviewed to ensure that we are collecting key, appropriate information whilst minimising the regulatory burden. We will redesign the web presentation of the Register of Charities, populating it with more key data about the work and finances of charities, ensuring that it is accurate and entered promptly.

We will reorganise the way we interact with charities making individual staff or small groups of staff accountable for defined groups of charities which they will advise, support and encourage submitting promptly. For the biggest charities the aim will be to "guide" accounts and returns in on time with telephone contact being made with those approaching the deadline or earlier for those with a history of late submission.  This division has a medium impact on gender equality.

Corporate Services comprises 4 business areas - Organisational Development, Human Resources, Business Enablement, and Finance & Audit all of which enable the Commission to deliver its key objectives and meet efficiency targets.  Organisational Development and Human Resources have a high impact on gender as does procurement for Business Enablement.  Other parts of this division have a low impact as does Finance and Audit.

Organisational Development

The Organisational Development team ensures the Commission has the right organisational structure to meet its objectives by: developing and implementing initiatives targeted at effective change management and improving organisational performance; driving quality and continuous improvement initiatives; and delivering effective training, development and communications programmes to support cultural change.

Human Resources

The Human Resources (HR) team provides strategic and operational services which enable the achievement of the corporate goals by: delivering relevant, pragmatic and innovative 'people' solutions which facilitate the effective recruitment, retention and reward of a diverse workforce; equipping managers with high quality tools and advice to maximise performance and productive time; and ensuring effective employee relations.

HR is also currently responsible for monitoring gender equality for employment issues. 

Business Enablement

Business Enablement provides a stable information technology infrastructure and realisation of benefits from investment in e-services; delivers a flexible and safe office environment; and innovative and compliant procurement processes that ensure value for money.

Finance & Audit

The Finance & Audit team provides robust financial management and management accounting systems to support effective planning and budget monitoring; delivers appropriate advice and financial guidance; actively supports the Commission's Audit Committee; and delivers timely and accurate management information to enable effective decision making.

Appendix 2

What is Gender Equality?

Whereas ‘sex’ is defined by sex discrimination legislation as biological difference, ‘gender’ includes socially constructed differences.  Gender roles structure men’s and women’s lives, and can result in significant disadvantage and inequality.  Women are more likely to have caring responsibilities, which can limit their working lives and income, and more likely to be victims of gender-based violence.  Men can be disadvantaged by workplace cultures which do not support their family or caring responsibilities.

The law protects male and female persons equally, and also covers transsexual people for employment and vocational training purposes.  The legislation will be extended to cover the provision of goods, facilities and services to transsexual people from December 2007.

‘Transsexual’ people have a medical condition which has led them to identify being of a different gender than that into which they were born (i.e. that of the physical body).  The law defines transsexual people as those who are either intending to have medical treatment to transfer from one gender to another, are currently undergoing such treatment or have undergone such treatment.

‘Transgender’ people usually have a wider definition which includes those who identify as being a member of the opposite sex but are not intending to undergo treatment (often for medical or financial reasons).  Our scheme also covers those who have dual gender identity or no such identity.