The Social Housing Anti-Racism Pledge outlines what actions housing organisations, who sign up are committed to implement. Formed from a partnership between BME London Landlords, BME National, and The Housing Diversity Network, all housing organisations are invited to take part and play an active role in the Social Housing sector demonstrating the necessary leadership to become zero tolerant anti-racist organisations.
There will be three ascending levels of membership awards:-
This involves signing up to SHARP, completing and online self-assessment, and means organisations are committing to develop an action-plan on Anti-Racism and work towards adopting the best practice to become an anti-racist organisation in its practice, policy framework and operational processes.
In addition to the Pledge Membership with the SHARP External Audit Membership, organisations commit to an External Audit process via the SHARP programme where member organisations will be supported to review their progress against their journey to become Anti-Racist in practice by verifying the measures planned and used to implemented their Anti-Racism action-plan especially in: -
Use of Date, Communication and Engagement - Disaggregate ethnicity data and use other channels to learn about the experiences of BAME tenants/service users and act on findings. Also measures implemented to publicise support for racial equality and stating its organisations commitment to anti-racist practice and awareness of specific challenges facing those who experience racism, and commitment to take specific actions to tackle these challenges. And how frequently they will report on our progress annually.
Demonstrating Change - Organisations are assessed on and can demonstrate how their board, executives, senior management have actively supported and promoted an inclusive culture where people are comfortable talking about race and can bring their whole self to work. Where this results in a demonstrable shift in organisational culture where Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority staff and tenants/ service users are comfortable and have clear pathways to voice concerns related to race and the organisation has in place clear procedural mechanisms to hear and address these concerns when raised.
Demonstrate board-level accountability - Able to demonstratively show that the organisations board have made itself accountable to Anti-Racist practice by taking responsibility for the SHARP commitments through its inclusion within strategic, annual work plans documentation. Also show via its reporting, monitoring and evaluating systems and framework be able demonstrate how it reviews progress and performance against targets set.
The membership fees for each level of SHARP Award membership table will be announced shortly.