Yorkshire Sculpture Park is committed to inclusion, diversity, and equity in all our activities, recognising that creativity, innovation, financial sustainability, and sound decision-making are improved by diversity.

We will foster an inclusive culture where all aspects of diversity are celebrated and seen as key to our – and everyone’s – ability to succeed and flourish. We are committed to building a more equitable and diverse community – artists, team, trustees, and partners – and creating an inclusive environment where anyone, from any background, can develop their talents, do their best work, and realise their full potential.

We believe it is in the best interest of this organisation to recruit, commission, involve and develop the best people for our jobs and projects from as wide and diverse a pool of talent as possible, to ensure our work is relevant to more people and reflects our mission.

Diversity and inclusion are matters of social justice. We recognise that we live in a society characterised by structural injustices, including systemic racism, ablism and gender inequality. We recognise that talent and potential are distributed across the population but are often unequally recognised due to structural inequalities. Tackling systemic barriers as they present in our work requires conscious, committed action.

It is our ambition and intention to embody the highest standards of practice to stimulate, promote and celebrate diversity in our community.

Aims

• Understanding and valuing diversity to enable fair participation in our work and activities.
• Ensure our diversity action plans are maintained whilst also addressing structural inequalities through our programming.
• Continually deepen our learning and evolve our understanding of diversity and inclusion.
• Build a more diverse, inclusive, and cohesive community: artists, staff, visitors, trustees, partners.

To achieve our aims, we will review the policy every year and produce an annual plan, encompassing all areas of our work.

We endeavour to be honest and hard-working in our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We know that every organisation and every individual is at a different point in their understanding, knowledge and lived experience. We are committed to continual learning as we can always do better.

Responsibilities

The Director and Managers of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Board of Trustees are responsible for ensuring organisational compliance with this policy and for its implementation, monitoring and review. This policy will be implemented through our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity Action Plan. All staff will receive an induction to this policy, along with on-going EDI training.

The organisation's commitments in this policy will be shared with any partners and all employees; and expectations of the commitment from them as staff or volunteers will be explained.

The EDI working group will monitor progress and report to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and the People and Governance Group, escalating any relevant issues to Trustees.

The EDI working group will include a wide range of staff members, wherever possible providing representation from different departments and commit to ensuring that YSP is aligned with current legal requirements and best practice.

Scope

This policy covers discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and/or belief, sex or sexual orientation as set out in the Equality Act (2010) — referred to as Protected Characteristic Groups (PCGs). We also wish to include non-discrimination on the grounds of socio-economic background, nationality, cultural background, social class, neurodiversity and employment status.

This policy applies to all people working with Yorkshire Sculpture Park in whatever capacity (employee, artist, volunteer, trustee, student, freelancer or contractor). All staff will be encouraged to consider how equity, diversity and inclusion can add value to their work.

Application

Detailed approaches to how the policy will be applied in different areas of YSP (e.g. Visitor accessibility, creation of learning and exhibition programme) will be considered over the next few years and added as appendices to the policy. For example, the recruitment and employment of staff is set out below:

Staffing and Recruitment

The aim of the policy is to ensure no job applicant, employee, worker or volunteer (including trustee) is discriminated against either directly or indirectly. Role descriptions and our approach to the advertising of vacancies are adapted and revised to ensure that they are in line with our policy and seen by a wide range of applicants.

Our recruitment commitments:

• An appropriate phrase will be added to all job adverts stating our commitment to improving EDI throughout YSP.
• All applicants who apply for roles with us will receive fair treatment and will be considered solely on their ability to fulfil the role.
• We will support an inclusive working environment in which no individual feels under threat or intimidated.
• All those involved in the recruitment process will periodically update their own knowledge and awareness of non-discriminatory recruitment processes to ensure they do not unlawfully discriminate.
• Short-listing, interviewing and selection decisions will be carried out by more than one person to mitigate against bias and where possible a diverse panel will be assembled.
• Support and reasonable adjustments will be made for all new starters, providing access to additional support where possible.
• We will report on the diversity of staff and Board on an annual basis.

Approved by Trustees June 2024.

For more information

Contact: Kevin Rodd (Deputy Director)