Thank you to everyone who participated in developing the first draft or contributed to our consultation on the DEI Data Group population framework. The open consultation period was open from 26th November to 10th December, and we received 24 responses through the online survey with the following breakdown (50% funders, around a quarter from consultancies and data organisations, and the rest voluntary sector organisations). We also have received 5 e-mail responses from voluntary sector organisations and have planned consultations with additional specialist groups in January.
Based on the feedback, we have revised the framework (link here) and we are working with funders on the guidance to go alongside the framework for use. The framework is being governed by the DEI Data Group, which met on 17 December to discuss the feedback and the way forward.
We have summarised the changes made, in response to the feedback that came from the groups.
Principles of the framework
Most respondents agreed with all of the principles. We’ve heard certain considerations that we’ll include in the forthcoming guidance:
- How this applies to funders who give core/unrestricted grants, or who have tailored funding processes for certain groups
- How charities can collect data from their stakeholders
- When and how the data should be collected for benchmarking
- Data monitoring versus assessment
- How specialist projects within generalist organisations fit
Categorisation of population groups
There was general agreement that the right groups have been covered. We have incorporated feedback on specific groups:
- Adding clarifications the term communities experiencing racial inequity is commonly referred to as BAME
- Changed some terminologies under Disabled people
- Added queer and intersex groups as part of other LGBT+ People
- Broadened to “people who are educationally or economically disadvantaged” and expanded the definition for other “class” considerations
- Created a new category on community background for Northern Ireland
There were points of feedback relating to additional sub-categories for lived experienced being added, but bearing in mind the need for consistency, ease of use, and benchmarking with publicly available data, we have not included more sub-categories. Instead we will include in the guidance how funders can customise for this in their own systems.
Application to grants
The framework has proposed three types of application to grants: i) People receiving support; ii) Mission and purpose; and iii) Leadership.
For i), we received feedback that some projects, by their nature (such as community inclusion) will work with a range of different groups even though it is intended to primarily benefit a specific group. We therefore changed the wording to “people receiving primary benefit”.
There was widespread agreement for ii) Mission and purpose. On leadership, there are a range of perspectives and there is no emerging consensus yet. More consultation on this will be required in January, focused on perspectives from specialist equalities organisations and infrastructure bodies. We also need greater consensus from funders on which organisations this information will be collected on.
Other considerations
We understand that the views presented so far are mainly focused on England, so we are interested to speak to groups in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We are also working on the guidance to address the above areas highlighted as well as unintended consequences, such as how to ensure confidentiality and not collect personally identifiable information; how to manage burden of data collection for charities, and how to support meaningful insight can be drawn from the data.
Between now and January 14th, we are looking to speak with specialist equalities organisations, and groups based in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If you are one of these groups and would like to set up a meeting with us, please e-mail [email protected]. If you’d like to still share your feedback on the framework, please fill in this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLvvT7lo8Q85084O4yd5srHh9mt5pbKgig48_G0xr_tKJWTg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Thank you again to those who have participated so far.