The information in this page is designed to help you understand the Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Connecting Theme and how you might develop your practice or organisation to ensure that you are implementing EDI across your programmes and organisational structures.
EDI is about fairness and cultural entitlement. It is also about creating the conditions for excellent art to be produced. Equality is about removing barriers, and diversity is about supporting and reflecting different cultures in Scotland, enabling all artistic and creative voices to be heard. Inclusion is about creating opportunities for people to work in, engage with, participate in, and experience arts and creativity throughout the country.
Experience shows that organisations that embrace EDI are more successful creatively, as they recognise the rich artistic and creative opportunities that diversity and inclusion offers, as well as being more economically viable and sustainable. It makes good business sense to offer flexible working environments, to diversify audiences and better reflect the changing population of Scotland today.
We know that the arts, screen and creative industries are not representative of the population of Scotland, either in terms of workforce or in terms of audience and participation. We are not using all the resources available to us, and benefitting fully from diversity of experience. Boards tend to be homogeneous. The employment in our funded organisations of disabled people and those from ethnic minorities is low. There are deep-rooted issues to be addressed about the representation of women on stage, screen and in the games industry.
The Equality Act 2010 provides a comprehensive legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all. All organisations that provide goods, facilities or services and all employers are subject to the Equality Act.
As a public body, Creative Scotland has a responsibility as part of the general duty under the Equality Act 2010, to promote a fair and more equal society and show ‘due regard’ to:
We share these responsibilities with the organisations we fund.
Further legislation supporting EDI objectives include the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 and the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005.
To better reflect the diversity of Scotland today your organisation should clearly embed equal opportunities in all aspects of its delivery, including your artistic programme, staff and working environments, management and board, audiences and participation, and buildings and spaces. If you are an individual artist, you should look to embed EDI in the buildings and spaces you use as well as engagement of audiences and participation.
Overall, you may wish to consider whether your commitment to EDI is evident across your project or organisation. You could achieve this through creating an EDI Action Plan, if appropriate.
EDI Action Plans should focus on two or three of the legally defined protected characteristics. Creative Scotland has also added its own characteristic of socio-economic deprivation which covers such areas as poverty, crime, rural isolation, low economic activity/unemployment and poor educational attainment. See our EDI toolkit for advice on how to develop this.
The following section contains some questions that you might find helpful to consider in developing EDI in your organisation or practice.
Access Toolkit by ISAN highlights measures event organisers can take to improve access for Deaf and disabled people to outdoor arts events.
The Age of Creativity is an online resource for arts and ageing.
Attitude is Everything improves Deaf and disabled people's access to live music by working in partnership with audiences, artists and the music industry to implement a Charter of Best Practice across the UK.
The Deaf Theatre Club is for Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people throughout Scotland who enjoy theatre. Solar Bear, in partnership with the National Theatre of Scotland, provide Deaf Theatre Club events in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Fife, Perth and Inverness.
Easy Read helps people with learning disabilities to understand information easily, using pictures to support the meaning of text. Easy Read provides essential information without a lot of background information. It can be also be helpful for people who are not fluent in English.
Shape Arts: access resources for the inclusion of Deaf and disabled people
Euan’s Guide is a national resource of disabled access reviews by disabled people.
Access Scottish Theatre provides information about accessible performances at theatres across Scotland for Deaf, deafened, hard of hearing and visually impaired audiences.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC): http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/
Scottish Household Survey:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/16002?dm_i=FES,4LECZ,2Z0YEW,H2HXG,1
Scottish Government Equalities Evidence Finder: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/Equality/Equalities/TourismCultureSport
The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/SIMD
New Scots Strategy http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2013/12/4581/0
The Scottish Government Race Equality Framework: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/03/4084
50/50 by 2020 Working for Diversity in the Boardroom: http://onescotland.org/equality-themes/5050-by-2020/
https://www.creativescotland.com/resources/our-publications/policies/equalities-in-creative-scotland
https://www.creativescotland.com/resources/our-publications/funding-documents/equalities-monitoring
Find out more about what we're doing to support equalities at Creative Scotland.