EAP Minutes 300321

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA Α’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el 30^th March 2021 5:00pm — 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present:

Fiona McLean (Chair) Anita Howard Bo Celia Heath­er Earn­shaw Kirsteen Kev­in Linda Bam­ford Pammy Peter Kennedy

In Attend­ance:

Kate Christie Vicky Walk­er Louisa McDaid (Cap­tion­er) Gail (Cap­tion­er) Martyn Crawshaw Kath­er­ine Willing

1. Intro­duc­tion 1.1. Fiona wel­comed the group and intro­duced Martyn Crawshaw, who was there to observe the meet­ing pri­or to attend­ing the next meet­ing as a speak­er. 1.2. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing were agreed upon with the pro­vi­sion that minute 2.8 was changed to reflect that it had been sug­ges­ted that clear face masks be bought by CNPA for use at recep­tion and to be handed out to com­munity groups.

2. Pammy Johal – Back­bone Sym­posi­um 2.1. Pammy dis­cussed that the sym­posi­um has invited a cross sec­tion of diverse com­munity movers and shakers and sec­tor­al organ­isa­tions. The sym­posi­um will focus on intern­al organ­isa­tions with­in the park with the aim of increas­ing diversity with­in work­forces and volun­teer­ing to make it more rep­res­ent­at­ive. 2.2. So far diverse com­munit­ies have been asked to com­plete a ques­tion­naire dis­cuss­ing their exper­i­ence of dis­crim­in­a­tion with­in the sec­tor and out-with the sec­tor. The next stage is to bring all those who have signed up togeth­er to action change and move bey­ond simply under­stand­ing the bar­ri­ers to entry.

Response from the Group

2.3. The defin­i­tion of ​“action change” was dis­cussed. Pammy dis­cussed that research cur­rently focuses on bar­ri­ers to entry, the hope for the sym­posi­um is that there will be cre­at­ive ideas that organ­isa­tions can action to cre­ate new oppor­tun­it­ies for diverse com­munit­ies. 2.4. The baseline for meas­ur­ing a more diverse group of people was raised. Pammy dis­cussed how Back­bone does not want to set fig­ures as tar­gets them­selves, this will be the role of the sym­posi­um when they come togeth­er to dis­cuss how they wish to meas­ure suc­cess. 2.5. Inter­sec­tion­al­ity was raised. Pammy dis­cussed how Back­bone cur­rent inter­sec­tion­al mod­el is used to address bar­ri­ers on the ground, this will con­tin­ue but mov­ing for­ward Back­bone want to encour­age work­ing togeth­er between sec­tor organ­isa­tions and diverse com­munit­ies as opposed to one doing some­thing for the oth­er. 2.6. Adding to dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing lack of diversity in volun­teer­ing, the lack of fund­ing to make reas­on­able adjust­ments in volun­teer­ing was raised. Pammy dis­cussed how they are talk­ing to the Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund to address where resources are cur­rently going and wheth­er this needs to be re-addressed to provide equal-oppor­tun­it­ies. It was sug­ges­ted that volun­teer Scot­land may be inter­ested in con­nect­ing with the sym­posi­um. 2.7. The risk of oth­er organ­isa­tions aspir­a­tions not meet­ing those of Backbone’s was raised and mit­ig­a­tion strategies were dis­cussed. Pammy explained that they have had a con­ver­sa­tion with all organ­isa­tions who wish to sign up and this oppor­tun­ity is used to explain that this is about cre­at­ing action change, groups who are not com­mit­ted to this are not able to sign up to the sym­posi­um. 2.8. Pos­it­ive action train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, cre­at­ing opening’s for per­man­ent jobs and increas­ing diversity at all levels of pos­i­tions was dis­cussed. Pammy explained that jobs in the sec­tor include all depart­ments. Regard­ing train­ing roles not turn­ing into per­meant jobs, Pammy explained this is often due to loc­a­tion and this will require cre­at­ive think­ing. 2.9. The need to remove com­pet­i­tion between sec­tors, groups and organ­isa­tions for fund­ing was raised. Pammy explained that the com­pet­i­tion over fund­ing or ego will be put to the symposium.

1. Vicky and Kate – Actions Paper and Intern­al Equal­it­ies Strategy 3.1. Vicky dis­cussed the cre­ation of the actions paper. Vicky felt this showed there was cur­rently no feed­back loop. Vicky asked the pan­el wheth­er the paper was use­ful and were there oth­er actions the pan­el would like to see regard­ing feed­back. 3.2. Kate dis­cussed ideas to help to improve CNPA’s equal­it­ies prac­tice. Kate asked if any mem­bers had exper­i­ence of intern­al focused equal­it­ies strategies or set­ting up an intern­al equal­it­ies group.

Response from the pan­el 3.3. Many pan­el mem­bers com­men­ted on how help­ful the actions report was, it was felt that it had shown how much had been done by the pan­el how­ever the pan­el believe more had been achieved than was reflec­ted in the paper. It was dis­cussed that it may be use­ful to have a quarterly actions report. Fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the

dif­fer­en­ti­ation between the parks gift and what would need to be approached through part­ner­ship work­ing was reques­ted. 3.4. The pan­el dis­cussed pre­vi­ous exper­i­ences of set­ting up intern­al advis­ory pan­els. One sug­ges­tion focused on hav­ing an employ­ee whose role focused purely on equal­it­ies as opposed to an ​‘add-on’ to someone’s role, how­ever, the organ­isa­tion size was noted as this may not be prac­tic­able. It was stressed those in equal­ity roles need to work across the organ­isa­tion­al struc­ture as well as up and down. 3.5. Mul­tiple pan­el mem­bers stressed the import­ance that even if there is one named per­son, equal­it­ies needs to be the role of every­one in the organ­isa­tion to improve. Many pan­el mem­bers offered help or advice if needed when it came to set­ting up intern­al equal­it­ies pan­el and strategies. 3.6. It was stressed by the pan­el that for an intern­al strategy to work those who feel they are affected by equal­it­ies issues need to be involved but it is as import­ant that those in a place of priv­ilege are involved so that an echo-cham­ber effect is avoided. Those in a place of power or priv­ilege need to become con­tinu­ously inves­ted with equal­it­ies issues and repeatedly show ally-ship. Presently the pan­el felt this was some­thing that needed to be improved upon with­in CNPA. 3.7. Equal­ity cham­pi­ons were dis­cussed; the pan­el sug­ges­ted that cham­pi­ons need to under­stand their role and the pre­vi­ous work that has been imple­men­ted to enable them to con­trib­ute suc­cess­fully. Trello boards have been used in oth­er organ­isa­tions, all employ­ees have an oblig­a­tion to update what they are work­ing on. Regard­ing equal­ity cham­pi­ons it was sug­ges­ted to link in with the recog­nised trade uni­ons and link with their equal­it­ies policies and pro­ced­ures. 3.8. An intern­al Equal­ity audit was sug­ges­ted. 3.9. The pan­el stressed that there can be an emo­tion­al and phys­ic­al bur­den to those who are in minor­ity groups feel­ing they have to con­tinu­ously speak up. There­fore, every­one in the organ­isa­tion, includ­ing those in man­age­ment and seni­or lead­er­ship needs to be involved.

1. Fiona — Dis­cus­sion of the Meet­ing Format 4.1. Fiona explained asked for the panel’s opin­ion on the format of the meet­ings and wheth­er we should be includ­ing any­one else as a pan­el mem­ber from groups that CNPA part­ners with.

Response from the Pan­el 4.2. Over­all, the pan­el felt it had gone well. There was some dis­ap­point­ment that due to Cov­id there had not been an in-per­son meet­ing. Once in-per­son meet­ings are allowed it was hoped this could hap­pen with the option for vir­tu­al attend­ance for those who pre­ferred. 4.3. The pan­el sug­ges­ted com­plet­ing a work-plan and then con­duct­ing a skills/​knowledge/​geography audit. Extra pan­el mem­bers should only be brought in where there is a gap. 4.4. The hour-and-a-half meet­ing monthly was felt to be right. It was felt any longer could become tiring.

1. Any Oth­er Busi­ness 5.1. Martyn Crawshaw explained what he will dis­cuss the Bad­aguish Out­door Centre at the next meet­ing of the equal­ity advis­ory meet­ing. 5.2. A pan­el mem­ber raised a help­ful resource for check­ing the access­ib­il­ity of a web­site. END OF MEETING