At HMI Prisons, we are committed to creating and maintaining a workplace that is positive about, and supportive of, equality and diversity. Diversity within our organisation improves our work: we want to build an inclusive and supportive environment where people are treated with dignity and respect, and where discrimination and/or exclusion are not tolerated.

To achieve this, our long-term vision is to:

• Make sure that staff have expertise and diversity that reflect the wider community in which we operate
• Create a flexible working environment that recognises and supports diversity
• Build a confident and competent workforce who feel valued and heard
• Train our inspectors to better understand and inspect equality and diversity and to make valid and relevant recommendations around it which help to improve outcomes for detainees with protected characteristics.

We expect all our staff and partners to share this vision.

HM Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons chairs our Equality and Diversity Advisory Group (EDAG). It meets quarterly and sets the agenda for our equality and diversity action plan, which has five priorities. We aim to improve:

• recruitment and retention
• staff well-being
• ways of working
• communication and transparency
• how we consider equality and diversity as part of HMI Prisons’ wider work

HMI Prisons’ Equality and Diversity Action Plan, 2019-2021 (243 kB)