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Dear Judith, 1) I hope this will assist you in deciding what and how you need to do in order to ensure that members of your Promotion Panels are trained appropriately, relative to all Equality and Diversity statutory requirements, not to mention good institutional practice for all your stakeholders. 2) I think the first admission that we need to make is that whatever we do towards training and/or any other institutional response that we make towards E&D requirements, we need to be seen to be guided by the RRAA's requirements, as it is the one E&D area currently making the most demands on institutional practice. This will enable our response to not only adopt a holistic E&D approach but also ensure that it does not go below the lowest level of quality that we are statutorily, required to maintain as part of good practice for all. 3) That guidance I think needs to be interpreted through the General Duty's three elements but more specifically, through the Specific Duty of Impact Assessment, and the other two most encompassing requirements of the RRAA, that of the "Burden of Proof and Vicarious Liability". 4) Since Promotion is a highly race equality (E&D) relevant function of institutional employment and service provision practice and has traditionally been a source of lots of complaints, it therefore, in my opinion, needs to be handled separately because it has particular needs of its own, under E&D. 5) This then means that the Promotion function definitely requires impact assessing first before we should even think of what training to provide and what skills and abilities the trainer should have because all that will be decided by the findings of our impact assessment process. The impact assessment process describes exactly what we should do, why, how, who and when, if we are to do this properly and according to not only the E&D requirements but also good institutional practice for all that is seen to be anti-(unlawful)discriminatory in its implementation. 6) Needless to caution that the impact assessment process needs to be evidentially implemented according to all the Guides' advice, the HFCE/ECU, the CRE, the recently launched JNCHES/ECU Communication and Consultation Report and Toolkit for HEIs and most importantly the CRE Statutory Code of Practice. 7) I think given all the above, a clear case is made for how highly E&D relevant the Promotion function is and therefore what, why and how the training of Promotion Panel members will need to be decided, not only because the function is different from recruitment but also the needs to be considered both of the Panel members themselves and the staff to be promoted, will demand different ways of addressing, under the various E&D statutory requirements. 8) Last but not least, if institutional culture and practice is to be seen, through reasonable and practicable evidence, to be striving to be good for all those who deserve, wish and are enabled to apply for promotion, then the training of all those who implement the function of Promotion, has to be seen to be relative and relevant to their real established needs. I hope this helps Judith and please feel free (and this is extended to all colleagues out there) to come back to me at any time if you feel you need any further explanation on any of the issues that I have raised above. Have a wonderful break. Warm regards Mannie. -----Original Message----- From: HE Administrators equal opportunities list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Judith Dimond Sent: 15 December 2004 14:15 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: University Promotion Panels Dear colleagues, can you tell me if any of you train the members of your Promotion Panels (separately and over and above 'recruitment' training) and in particular in the areas of unconscious bias and gender/race awareness? Judith Dimond Equality Co-ordinator University of Kent This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager at Trinity Development immediately on +44 (0)191 350 6538 quoting the name of the sender and the addressee and then delete it from your system. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company. Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The company accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.