Ofcom's mission is to guarantee diversity and inclusion as an employer and as a regulator

On 29 March 2018, Ofcom has published its four-year plan of action in order to ensure that diversity and inclusion remain central to its activities, both as an employer and as the UK’s communications regulator.

The document, which has been established on the basis of a public consultation held between 23 January and 23 February 2018, sets out the regulator’s objectives and actions for 2018-2022. Ofcom’s Diversity and Inclusion Programme addresses its duties under the Communications Act 2003 to further the interests of consumers, as well as its duties as an employer to promote equal opportunities. Ofcom is also required to publish its equality objectives under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

Some of the concrete actions Ofcom plans to undertake are listed below:

• As an employer, Ofcom is willing to build a diverse and inclusive workforce to better reflect the UK population by strengthening the diversity of its workforce, strengthening its approach to recruitment and doing regular assessment and reporting, which will allow the regulator to continue to measure on the diversity of its workforce and improve the standard and quality of its diversity data;

• Again as an employer, Ofcom will continue to ensure that diversity and inclusion are central to its work practices and culture by guaranteeing a fair and transparent pay structure, strengthening leadership accountability to champion a diverse and inclusive culture, benchmarking against leading employers, improving the accessibility of its premises and processes for disabled colleagues and focus on wellbeing and mental health, setting targets to improve its colleagues engagement scores and inclusivity measures across all groups of colleagues, considering and reflecting its equality objectives in its procurement practices, supporting and nurturing colleague diversity networks and promoting LGBT inclusion;

• As a regulator, Ofcom will ensure that the different needs and interests of all individuals are considered when carrying out its regulatory work by, inter alia, protecting vulnerable consumers, promoting the availability of easy-to-use technology and accessibility of audiovisual services, considering the impact of proposed policies on diverse groups as part of Ofcom's policy development, strengthening diversity and inclusion in broadcasting, licensing radio stations serving diverse audiences, enforcing its rules on harmful and/or offensive broadcast content, including potentially offensive material on the grounds of a protected characteristic etc.

• Ofcom's Press Release

Source: Ofcom Website

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Additional EPRA Background: Note that Gender issues will feature on EPRA's agenda in 2018 with an annual Working Group on Achieving greater Diversity in Broadcasting, which Ofcom will be content-producing during the 47th EPRA Meeting in Luxembourg on 23-25 May 2018.