David Ruebain, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Culture, Equality and Inclusion)

Dear colleague,
 
I wanted to share some of the highlights relating to our ongoing culture, equality and inclusion work since my last update. A number of events were held during March:

• One World Week took place last week and you can see the gallery of images.
• You can watch the recording of our International Women’s Day Celebration on 8 March - a joint event with Brighton University which had some great speakers and involved students and staff from both institutions.
• On Thursday 31 March, at the request of our trans and non-binary colleagues, we flew the flag for International Transgender Day of Visibility. Subsequently, we reinstated the Ukrainian flag as a visible endorsement of the University’s acknowledgement of the awful events and support for those impacted by the conflict.

Gender pay gap report
Last week we published our annual Gender Pay Gap report. We have a statutory duty to
submit this information to the UK Government Equalities Office.

It may be useful to clarify the difference between ‘pay gap’ and ‘equal pay’. Equal pay is the right for individuals to be paid the same amount for the same/equivalent work or work of equal value. Fundamentally, it may be unlawful to have inequal pay (depending on the material factors) but that is not what our gender pay gap is about.

The gender pay gap shows the differences in average pay between men and women when the earnings of everyone (in all roles and grades) are reviewed together. Our mean gender pay gap is 17.9%, a reduction of 0.5 % percentage points compared to last year. Our median gender pay gap has also reduced, from 12.7% to 12.0%.

There are a number of reasons or drivers for a gender pay gap - which apply across many sectors. At Sussex, 55% of our workforce are female, but they are not distributed evenly. The gender pay gap regulations ask organisations to calculate the percentage of men and women found in each pay quartile (these figures are derived by arranging the hourly pay of all staff, from highest to lowest paid and dividing this list up into four equal quartiles). When we do this, we see that 69% of staff in the bottom pay quartile are female while only 40% are female in the top pay quartile. It is a positive that we offer flexibility in roles such that women, often mothers, can access them, but we must nevertheless continue to work to address the under-representation of women in senior roles, including working practices to facilitate this.

Changing demographics is not straightforward, but to do so, we are seeking to address the gendered impact on promotion and career progression of female academics due to caring and parenting responsibilities, reviewing pay structures and policies and reshaping our recruitment policy and procedure, making sure we have gender balanced applicant short-lists for senior roles. I am pleased that an additional role has been created within our HR leadership team (Assistant Director of Culture, Equality and Inclusion) to further focus on these key areas and help to drive the improvements needed.
 
Find out more about our pay gap reporting. 

Refreshed EDI strategy
I shared my plans for revising our Inclusive Sussex strategy with Council on Friday. I have been reflecting on our four goals within that strategy: Equal Sussex, Diverse Sussex, Accessible Sussex and Flexible Sussex, and I’d like us to add a fifth goal; Connected Sussex – Build a thriving community that fosters good relations and supports a rich, diverse, rigorous, collegiate and inquisitive teaching, learning and research environment.
 
I am currently working on a revised Inclusive Sussex strategy with KPIs and accompanying business plans. I’ll be sharing updates on this progress.
 
Staff survey
The spring staff survey launches on 25 April, and we are continuing with two surveys a year. From this year we are undertaking a ‘deep dive’ into issues on which we want to get a better understanding. The focus of our first survey of 2022 will explore issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, and senses of belonging. The autumn 2022 survey will explore views about leadership, management and development.
 
Taking part in the survey will really help our equalities work, particularly as this survey will contain seven core Athena SWAN questions, and participation will help by making it easier to pull down data for Athena SWAN submissions.
 
Equalities data in MyView
As you may recall, we have asked staff to input their equalities data in MyView. So far we have received a really positive response, with 20% of staff taking a few moments to do this - thank you. Data is critical in developing effective and nuanced programmes to address under-representation and disadvantage. It only takes a couple of minutes to update MyView, and we encourage everyone to do this.
 
Report + Support tool data
Our Report + Support online tool for staff and students launched in August 2021 as part of the implementation of our Dignity and Respect policy. We committed to sharing data every six months on how our staff and students are using the tool and to using that information to develop a full action plan 12 months after launch. The first six-month report on staff use of the tool has now been published on the Report and Support site. In addition, three new Dignity and Respect champions have been recruited and are being trained.

This month:

Santander Union Black training
There’s still time to be involved in a pilot Santander Union Black training, a great opportunity for our community to learn at a time and pace that is suitable for them and to also shape training to advance an anti-racist culture. Access to the course is via the Santander Scholarship platform. It’s open and available until 2 May 2022.  If you have any problems accessing the course, please do let us know so that we can resolve this for you.

Ramadan
Ramadan began on 2 April, the first night of a month in which Muslims across the world will be fasting from sunrise to sunset. It’s important for line managers to have conversations with Muslim staff, to understand how staff can be supported during the month.

Staff and students breaking fast alone may wish to join the Ramadan Tent Project’s Open Iftar 2022, which will bring people together online to listen to speakers, interact with others and listen to the call for prayers before people break fast together virtually. 
 
With good wishes,

David Ruebain 
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Culture, Equality & Inclusion)