Arts council staff report challenges around race, disability and personal belief

Staff at Arts Council England have faced negative experiences due to race, disability and personal beliefs, according to an independent assessment of workforce inclusion conducted earlier this year.

A review by Nous consultancy, published last week, praised the high bar that the arts council has set itself in relation to workforce inclusion and recognised its leadership in the sector across comparable organisations.

However it found that Black, Asian and ethnically diverse staff at the arts council had faced microaggressions, racial stereotyping, bias and discriminatory behaviours, and that these had not been dealt with consistently within the organisation.

The report also found that while disabled representation in the arts council is better than in the civil service as a whole, “diversity may not have fully translated into inclusion”.

Most disabled staff reported instances where the arts council had not considered their access needs or preferences, and recounted instances of ableist attitudes and discrimination from colleagues, line managers and senior leaders.

There is a perception among staff that favouritism and unconcious bias play a role in advancement at the arts council, the review found.

Personal beliefs emerged as another area of tension, with the report highlighting how the polarised discourse around sex and gender in wider society has created a “major fault line” within the organisation.

Published weeks after former employee Denise Fahmy won a claim against the arts council for harassment on the basis of her gender critical beliefs, the report found that conflict over the issue had resulted in an “unresolved breakdown in the relationship between pro-trans and gender critical staff”.

It found that employees with gender critical beliefs and those without have reported harassment from colleagues causing “harm, stress and genuine hurt”, and highlighted that the Equality Act protects both belief and non-belief from discrimination and harassment.

The report also found potentially harmful behaviour at the arts council in relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. It stated that the “begrudging performance of accepting another person’s pronouns” did not encourage a positive environment for trans staff, and that “overtly de-legitimising trans identities is likely to promote a hostile environment”.

The report highlighted a number of positives in the arts council’s work on inclusion, such as considerable progress in closing gender and ethnicity pay disparities, as well as successful efforts to increase the recruitment of Black, Asian and ethnically diverse staff. Staff described positive developments in relation to workplace adjustments, as well as flexibility and support with childcare, caring and other personal responsibilities.

The report sets out six key recommendations for the arts council to implement over the next one to two years.  

Recommendations

• Ensure workplace adjustments are applied consistently and improve staff awareness of supports
• Increase staff confidence and improve transparency in grievance processes
• Improve transparency in the advancement pathways
• Enhance the capability of managers and leaders to create an inclusive culture for all staff
• Clarify the purpose and governance for staff netowkrs to maximise their contributions
• Uphold the Public Sector Equality Duty to foster good relations between staff in relation to personal beliefs

In a blog responding to the review, arts council chief executive Darren Henley wrote: “As an organisation, and a leadership team, we are now focused on implementing these recommendations and to seeing culture change take place. This will mean making some changes to our systems and processes but it will also mean continuing to talk to each other about how we act and how we treat each other.”

Henley added that the arts council would seek to be “honest and transparent about the journey we need to go on, and to share that learning with others”.