SUBMISSION AND COMPLIANCE: risks for Stonewall Champions
by Naomi Cunningham, Legal Feminist:
Stonewall have signed up more than 850 companies, charities, government departments and public authorities to be “Stonewall Diversity Champions.” Naomi Cunningham examines the risks for participating bodies.
Stonewall is an LGBT charity and lobbying group that started small, edgy and rebellious in 1989. It has grown. These days, it has an enviably cosy relationship with the Establishment and an annual income of over £8M.
Stonewall’s employer programmes
Stonewall runs two related programmes that employers can join to demonstrate their commitment to LGBT equality, the Workplace Equality Index and the Diversity Champions scheme.
More than 850 employers have signed themselves up as Diversity Champions. It’s an impressive list, full of global mega-corporations and household names; magic circle law firms; prestigious universities; government departments and regulators. Amazon, Marks & Spencer, Nestlé; Imperial College London, Oxford University, the Royal College of Art; the Crown Prosecution Service and the Care Quality Standards Commission, to name but a few.
It’s not completely clear from Stonewall’s website how the two programmes interact, but at any rate they explain that one of the benefits an employer gets with membership of the Champions scheme is “in-depth, tailored feedback” on their submission to the Workplace Equality Index. The Champions evidently get their money’s worth out of this feedback, because every single one of the top 100 employers on the Workplace Equality Index is also a Diversity Champion.
Qualifying for the Workplace Equality Index
So what do you have to do to win one of these coveted places on the list of Stonewall’s top 100 employers? Stonewall’s own website is a little bit coy about that, but thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted on Whatdotheyknow.com (thank you, Mr M Hunter), we can see the whole of Edinburgh University’s 2019 submission, complete with the questions they were required to answer, and Stonewall’s feedback. As a result, Edinburgh University makes an illuminating case-study. They had learned their lessons well, and received approving feedback from Stonewall, but even so they didn’t make it into either the 2019 or the 2020 “Top 100 Employers” lists. We can infer that their levels of compliance are far from exceptional even among “Diversity Champions.”
The Workplace Equality Index submission is a major piece of work. The questions alone run to 4,000 words, divided into 10 sections:
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