Inclusion Policies and Action Plans

Here you can find out more about the policies and structures we have put in place to make English Heritage a more accessible place for everyone.

It is English Heritage Policy to:

i) Positively promote equality of opportunity as an employer and a service provider.

ii) Provide and encourage opportunities for all to access, understand and enjoy the historic environment.

iii) Seek to understand the diversity of England’s heritage and promote a more inclusive understanding of our past. 

iv) Value and share an inclusive interpretation of England’s heritage. 

v) Demonstrate that the historic environment contributes to positive change in the lives of individuals and communities. 

vi) Promote good practice on equalities issues in the historic environment sector and actively engage with partners to encourage others to do the same.

vii) Ensuring that all our activities as an organisation take into account the widest possible range of needs. 

viii) Encourage a more diverse range of people to train for and join the heritage sector workforce in order to secure our shared heritage for future generations.

From setting up our Gender Equality Scheme, to outlining our equal opportunities policy or creating a comprehensive Properties Access Policy in partnership with disabled people, English Heritage is committed to increasing access to heritage both internally and externally.

You can also follow the link to more general EH policies, and find out more about our work with tall buildings, or seaside towns, for example.

If you have any comments on our policies, please email heritageforall@english-heritage.org.uk

Race Equality Scheme

Currently being revised: Watch this space!

Gender Equality Scheme

 The Equality Act 2006 came into force in April 2007, introducing a new Gender Equality Duty for public bodies such as English Heritage.  This asks us to demonstrate how we consider and monitor the different issues and priorities in provision of services for men and women and also the impact of our employment policies on men and women.  We are also asked to show that we consider and monitor how our employment policies affect transsexual men and women and their rights to equality of opportunity, dignity and privacy.

English Heritage is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. We are opposed to all forms of unlawful and unfair discrimination.  The Gender Equality Scheme sets out our current policies and monitoring procedures to ensure that we actively meet the Gender Equality Duty, as well as a comprehensive action plan to ensure we reamin focussed in promoting gender equality in all the work we do.

Gender Equality Scheme

 

Disability Equality Scheme

 A Disability Equality Scheme sets out our plans for working with disabled people to ensure that everyone can have the best possible interaction with English Heritage, for example, as visitors, employees, researchers or grant applicants. The Scheme also includes a number of things we must consider. For example, our Action Plan must include measurements of progress for disabled people in the areas of employment and access to services.

The purpose of our Disability Equality Scheme is to ensure disability equality is mainstreamed across English Heritage by:

• Showing how we have involved disabled people in developing the scheme and taking the decisions we have made;
• Explaining the arrangements we have in place to gather information on our performance on disability equality;
• Explaining our arrangements for assessing the impact of our activities on disability equality;
• Explaining how we will use the information we gather in reviewing the effectiveness of our actions; and
• Detailing our proposed action plan to improve access arrangements to all our services and activities for disabled people.
• We will monitor and check what we are doing and report each year. Our aim is to achieve positive, measurable outcomes that continue to build towards equality.

As our understanding and expectations develop, the Disability Equality Scheme document will naturally evolve, so we would be pleased to hear your comments and thoughts either on the document itself or on the experience you receive when working with us. Please contact us at heritageforall@english-heritage.org.uk or on the numbers below.

We have just finished the first year of work identified in our 2007 Action Plan and have attached an update on the progress we made below. We have also set ourselves a range on new targets for the period 2008-11 and these are available in a variety of different formats below.

If you require this information in other formats such as braille or spoken word please call Customer Services on: 0870 333 1181/ Textphone: 0800 015 0516 or email customers@english-heritage.org.uk

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these documents, if you don't already have it, download a free copy.