Equal Opportunities Policy Statement and Policy

Council approved the following Policy Statement in February 1993, and the Policy in February 1994.

Policy Statement

The Society is committed to the achievement of equality of opportunity as an employer and in its dealings with members. It is also committed to ensuring equality of opportunity in academic and professional training and to users of psychological services.The Society aims to ensure that no job applicant or employee of the Society, member or user of psychological services receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of, for example, gender, colour, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, sexual preference or age, or is disadvantaged by terms or requirements which cannot be shown to be justified.

The Society is committed to a programme of action designed to make this Policy effective.

The Society will ensure that it has in place appropriate procedures which can be used by individual members of staff, members of the Society and users of psychological services if they feel that they have been unfairly treated in respect of this Policy.

All members and employees of the Society have an individual responsibility to ensure they comply with this Policy. Specific responsibilities fall upon the management and Council of the Society.

Overall responsibility will rest with the Council of the Society.

Policy

The purpose of this Policy is to reaffirm The British Psychological Society’s commitment to equal opportunity both in its responsibilities as a professional association and as an employer. This document seeks to provide a framework of good practice and to create a structure for managing equal opportunity within The British Psychological Society. The Society is committed to a programme of action designed to make this Policy effective based on the principle of merit, not positive discrimination or tokenism.

1. Areas of Responsibility

1.1 Council, Committees and Subsystems


All committees, including Council, will endeavour to ensure that they reflect their constituency in terms of gender, ethnicity and disability. This does not preclude committees examining other issues of representation and expertise which may be significant to their constituency.

1.2 Individual Members


Members will ensure that they;

• comply with point 2.1 of Ethical Principles for Conducting Research with Human Participants;
  
• are aware of relevant equal opportunities legislation and how it applies to their particular specialism;
  
• regularly review the ways in which they carry out their work in order to ensure that standards of practice are being applied fairly to all users of psychological services and that accessible complaints and feedback procedures are provided.

1.3 Academic and Professional Training in Psychology


Course content should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that issues relating to equality and inequality receive sufficient coverage.

Members running training courses should seek to identify and utilise relevant expertise in equal opportunities related subjects (e.g. in other professions; users of services) and ethical standards of practice.

Courses should monitor applicants with respect to ethnic origin, gender and disability.

The British Psychological Society will;


• seek active participation and contribution from a representative mix of people when arranging conferences;
  
• ensure the provision of relevant training materials in the area of equal opportunities;
  
• encourage individual courses to ensure the adequacy of coverage of equal opportunity issues.

1.4 Honours and awards


The Society will endeavour to ensure that;

• there are systematic procedures for selecting people for honours and that these are clear to all members;
  
• there are clear criteria for selecting people for such honours and that these criteria are widely known and explicit;
  
• all awards are advertised and nominations encouraged for suitably qualified individuals;
• each subsystem is encouraged to put forward nominations for honours;
  
• the awarding of honours, including nominations, is monitored by the Society according to gender and ethnic origin;
  
• the awarding body will consider strategies to address any imbalance in nominations should they occur.

2. Monitoring

The Society will;

• monitor the composition of Committees and Boards by gender, ethnicity and disability;
  
• monitor applicants wishing to become members of the Society by gender. ethnicity and disability;
  
• update existing records;
  
• ask subsystems to consider how well the policy is being implemented in their area until quantifiable information has been gathered.

3. Review of Policies and Procedures

This policy will be reviewed every two years to ensure that it remains appropriate to the aims of the Society.

The Standing Committee for the Promotion of Equal Opportunities (SCPEO) will be encouraged to scrutinise and comment upon Society policy decisions, and to be involved in the development of the policies.

4. Raising and Responding to Public Awareness of Equal Opportunities Issues

The Society will aim to raise awareness and improve knowledge of equal opportunities issues among members.

The Society will encourage publication of psychological research in the equal opportunities area.

5. Implementation

This document outlines the policy that the Society wishes to adopt. Further documentation will be required detailing how the policy will be implemented and the exact nature of the processes to be used for monitoring its implementation.

The Society’s Employment Policy is consistent with the principles embodied in this document.