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Thanks John. I have been keeping Kate informed and I'm going to try to contact her later today. I and a few others on the working group have secured a meeting in Coventry tomorrow with Lee Probert from the LSC. Best wishes, Syd. Syd Kent mailto:[log in to unmask] Equality and Diversity Officer University of Essex Wivenhoe park Colchester Essex CO4 3SQ Phone: 01206 872390 Fax: 01206 873396 -----Original Message----- From: HE Administrators equal opportunities list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John McLellan Sent: 28 August 2007 06:51 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: EQUAL Project and LSC Event 10 September. Hi Syd. I think its great that you have circulated this info to people and that you have had so many encouraging responses. Maybe HEEON should send a more formal presence to the 10 Sept LSC meeting, given the concern from members? I am copying this to Kate, just as a thought? Maybe there is some other communication route, but I think the 'voice' of HEEON needs to be heard - and I'm sure you're not the only professional community with a concern! Cheers JOHN Mc. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent, Syd" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 9:18 AM Subject: EQUAL Project and LSC Event 10 September. Message from Syd Kent. I have been attending meetings of the advisory group for the LSC project on: "the feasibility of setting up an association and arranging professional qualifications for equality practitioners". I have mentioned before that I have serious concerns about this project and the way it has been conducted. I want to let you know more about some of my concerns as some of you may be thinking of attending the event on Monday 10th September in Birmingham, "Equality and Diversity moving the agenda forward", "Opportunity to contribute to Professionalizing the Equality and Diversity Practitioner field". I will not be able to attend on 10 September as I am attending another event which is researching degree attainment of minority groups, you will recall this is an are of interest for HEEON and those of you at conference this summer will have heard presentations on this theme. If you have seen any of the publicity about this LSC project which includes press releases and event flyers etc you will see that the information included gives a figure of 1500 practitioners consulted. I think it is important for you to know that only 210 of those 1500 actually responded to the survey so the claims made about the results are based on this smaller sample and not, as they may try to suggest, and as they do suggest in the publicity, on all 1500. There are several members of the advisory group who share my concerns and our questions and suggestions have been ignored. We believe at the very least more research needs to be done including more consultation with actual practitioners in the field. In theory there should have been members of the advisory group from other sectors but actually there has been hardly any participation from the likes of local government, police, NHS let alone the private or voluntary sectors. There are so many questions unanswered and these people seem to be moving their agenda forward regardless. Trevor Philips seems to be very unhappy with E&D practitioners and last week used such terms as: charlatans, rogues and cowboys to describe them/us, he believes practitioners need regulating and maybe you agree. I think one of my colleagues on the advisory group puts it quite well when she describes most practitioners as activists and I think that's really where most of us are coming from, we believe in what we are trying to do as practitioners. Ask yourselves these questions: 1. Would you be able to achieve Mr Phillips competence based qualifications and survive his regulations? How can you know without more details? 2. Do you want to have to pay to join another association that would probably not be controlled by practitioners and would really only seem to have the purpose of controlling you and getting rid of the experience, diversity and specialism's within the "profession"? 3. What if you needed to be a member to get a job as an E&D practitioner and you couldn't be a member if you didn't have the right qualification? 4. Why a competency based qualification? Why not a knowledge based qualification or both? We need more information. 5. Has this project been conducted in the best way? Is it appropriate or best use of public funds? We have constantly been seeking answers to these points and others and making suggestions about the way forward but have been consistently ignored. As far as I'm aware I'm the only practitioner on the advisory group in a similar institutional post as many of you. I'm not necessarily opposed to the setting up of an association or of more accredited qualifications being Available but I want to know more and for us to have a genuine say in developments. Some of us on the advisory group are calling for an emergency meeting to try even at this late stage to put matters right but I fear we will not be listened to. So if you are going on 10 September please consider asking questions, question the research findings, seek out details on regulations and qualifications. Finally, I'm sorry if you feel I have wasted your time and if you feel you want to give me your views on any of this then please do. You may not agree with me if so let me know. Best wishes, Syd. Syd Kent mailto:[log in to unmask] Equality and Diversity Officer University of Essex Wivenhoe park Colchester Essex CO4 3SQ Phone: 01206 872390 Fax: 01206 873396