Our Equality and Diversity Policy

Historic Environment Scotland is committed to promoting a culture of equality and diversity. We seek to be an inclusive organisation, where diversity is valued with the ability to recruit and retain a diverse workforce that reflects the local communities it serves.

We endeavour to ensure that all staff members, job applicants and members of the public are treated fairly and with respect irrespective of age, gender, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion, pregnancy and maternity or sexual orientation - the protected characteristics as outlined in the Equality Act 2010.

When we go about our business as a public body, we have to meet the general equality duty, which requires that in the execution of our duties, we take into account the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other prohibited conduct;

• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not; and

• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

We will endeavour to create a working environment in which individual differences and contributions of all our staff are recognised, respected and valued.

A zero tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and victimisation will be taken by the organisation. We'll provide every employee with a working environment that promotes dignity and respect to all.

Training, development and progression opportunities will be available to all staff and we'll take steps to tackle barriers to participation and accessibility, making reasonable adjustments where appropriate.

We will ensure breaches of this policy will be regarded as misconduct and could lead to disciplinary proceedings.

The Equality Act 2010 and the Equality Act (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 set out a single equality duty and statutory specific duties for listed public bodies in Scotland.

As a Scottish Public Body, we must meet these duties in order to ensure positive and real change for people with protected characteristics. The duties set out how we evidence what we are doing in relation to equality and require us to proactively gather, use and publish employee information in an accessible manner.

We will achieve this through regular information audits to ensure our records are accurate and up to date, adherence to the outlined Records Management procedure and through publication of our Equality Outcomes and Mainstreaming Equality Reports.

All staff have the right to pursue a complaint concerning discrimination, harassment or victimisation and should raise any concerns as soon as possible with their line manager, or if more appropriate a senior manager, Trade Union Representative (if they are a member) or HR.

If you are unable to resolve the matter at a local level, then you can raise it formally through the Historic Environment Scotland Grievance Policy. If well founded, any such incidents will be treated as misconduct and will be dealt with under the Disciplinary Policy.