NICS Diversity Training Package

To be truly “fit for purpose”, the Northern Ireland Civil Service needs, amongst other things, to be open to, and in touch with, the society it serves. This open-ness, this empathy, must extend to our staff; the people who deliver the public policies and services which our increasingly diverse society demands.

That is why I am pleased to have been asked to launch this morning the Northern Ireland Civil Service’s new diversity training package. It will be one of government’s key contributions to promoting awareness of diversity as an issue. I am particularly pleased to be able to announce this training in Anti Racist Workplace Week.

This week against racism in the workplace, as you know, is observed all over Ireland and is being organised here by the Equality Commission and its partners.

It’s appropriate that the core theme for Anti-Racist Workplace Week 2006; is integration in the workplace.

Effective integration in this context means:

I specifically welcome the focus being on everyone, not just minorities, and the fact that all the initiatives this week highlight practical workplace actions aimed at accommodating and valuing diversity in Northern Ireland.

Focusing on these themes this week provides an opportunity to reflect on key aspects of the Government’s Racial Equality Strategy which was launched last year.

The strategy sets out six shared aims that Government in Northern Ireland will pursue in tackling racial inequalities and eradicating racism. These aims include the elimination of racial inequality; equal protection and redress against racism and racist crime; encouraging participation; promote dialogue; capacity building and, equality of service provision.

It is widely acknowledged that Northern Ireland is a latecomer to racial equality and anti-racism. Not only do we have to work on hearts and minds but we all have a lot to learn – both about the issues and how we can tackle them. And that learning process will take time. This training package, I believe, will make an important contribution to the learning process for the NICS and for other organisations both within the wider public sector and the private sector in Northern Ireland.

The Government’s Strategic intent is also matched with action and this training package is one example of the 200 or so actions contained in the first annual Action Plan which will implement the Racial Equality Strategy.

The Action Plan operates within an infrastructure that I have been able to have a personal role in;

This work is being carried forward by you and by all of us in the room to-day. Like everything else it is continually evolving and responding to changes in our society.

This gives me an opportunity to mention briefly, our further planning process for the second Implementation Action Plan, which has already begun, and will be further progressed at next month’s meeting of the Racial Equality Forum.

All the measures we’re taking in embracing diversity - both those currently undertaken and those being planned - help meet the challenges of a society in transition.

And “embracing diversity”, along with ‘putting the front line first’ and ‘building capability’, is one of the three key themes in the NICS’s programme of change and reform.

These three themes are not separate or mutually exclusive. They are overlapping and complementary. Their goal is a Civil Service that;

Indeed on the 9 October 2006, The Minister, David Hanson launched ‘Improving Government Service Delivery to Minority Ethnic Groups’ in this very room. As a service provider it is essential that we ensure that service provision plays an important role in promoting racial equality and diversity in general.

What we ultimately want is an effective Civil Service, and how we treat each other and all our employees is an integral element of how we go about achieving this. I believe Jean Horstman of the Society on Organisational Learning had this synergy between mutual respect and business efficiency in mind, when she said:

Becoming ‘diversity aware” means we can all bring our talents to the table. Diversity awareness is good news - not just good practice - for employees, for employers, and for customers, alike.

  

To help us take the first steps along this road we produced the training package we’re here to launch today. Our aim is to raise diversity awareness where any organisation needs it most – with its own people. The design and development have just been completed, with the results which you are about to preview. The training package is, we believe, relevant not only to our staff in the NI Civil Service, but to people working in any organisation which has to deal with a changing, more diverse society – any what organisation in today’s Northern Ireland doesn’t?

As you will see, the training’s central message is that everybody - that is, each individual member of staff, and not just management or HR - has a crucial role to play.

I believe that there can be no innocent bystanders in effective, respectful organisations who are “diversity aware” and practice what they preach.

While it is true that sticks and stones can break our bones, these will usually mend quickly. The human spirit, once broken, can take much longer to retrieve. Employers see this in disputes, absence statistics and lost productivity. Service providers see this in lost customers, or the lost goodwill of those that remain.

As Northern Ireland moves towards a new era, so must its Civil Service. As Northern Ireland becomes a more diverse country so must its Civil Service respond. This training package is a first step.

I want to finish with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., reinforcing the central message of our video that all our people have to take action in the creation of a truly diverse workplace.

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

What we all need to do now – what the NI Civil Service IS doing now –  is about making sure this won’t be history’s verdict on US!