Equal Opportunities

Access to Assessment

Equal opportunities

This document sets out the City & Guilds’ Group policy for providing equal opportunities.

Commitment

We are committed to giving everyone who wants to gain one of our awards an equal opportunity of achieving it in line with current UK legislation and EU directives (for example, recognising the restrictions on people who work with, or want to work with, children and vulnerable adults). We support equal opportunities in education, training and employment, and will take positive action to:

· promote practice and procedures in our centres that give equal opportunities to everybody,
regardless of their culture, sex, ability, disability, age, ethnic background, nationality, religion,
sexual orientation (sexuality), marital status, employment status or social class
· work towards removing all practice and procedures that discriminate unfairly (directly or
indirectly)
· widen access to our awards to include people who are under-represented
· set the awards standards according to equal opportunities best practice.

Aims

To meet our commitment we will deliver:

• advice that is sensitive to the widest possible range of our candidates’ needs
• assessments that are based on awards requirements only and do not discriminate against anyone
• documents that are easily understood, and that do not reflect a stereotyped or biased attitude
• promotional material that reflects the diversity (different backgrounds and different needs) of our candidates
• quality assurance that applies fair processes

We will make sure that our centres use an equal opportunities policy that works together with
ours, and that they maintain an effective appeals procedure. We will expect centres to tell
candidates how to find and use their own equal opportunities policy and appeals procedure.

Putting this policy into practice

To put this policy into practice successfully we will:

• issue a copy of this policy to all our staff, examiners, verifiers, and centres, and make it readily available to anyone who asks for it
• organise regular development activities for our staff, examiners and verifiers
• include the aims of this policy when we develop and review our awards and assessment guidance
• maintain a working party to monitor and review the effectiveness of our policy and to look for ways of improving it

Equal opportunities policy - August 2001

What to do if you want to discuss any equal opportunities issues
If you are a candidate, and you want to discuss an equal opportunities issue, please write to the
appropriate person (for example, Quality Assurance Co-ordinator, Examinations Secretary) at
your centre. If you feel that there has been a problem getting access to assessment in your centre
which you believe your centre has not dealt with properly, write to our Customer Services
Enquiries Unit at the address below.
If you represent one of our centres, and want to discuss an equal opportunities issue, please write
to our Customer Services Enquiries Unit at the address below.
City & Guilds
1 Giltspur Street
London
EC1A 9DD
For calls or enquiries from within the United Kingdom
Telephone 020 7294 2800
Fax 020 7294 2405
E-mail enquiry@city-and-guilds.co.uk
Website www.city-and-guilds.co.uk