Diversity Impact Assessments
We measure the impact of our designs so we can create the most accessible spaces for everyone
Everyone Matters strategy
Our Everyone Matters strategy, describes our approach to diversity and inclusion across three themes: access and inclusion; behaviours and benchmarks; and collaboration.
It highlights that:
We will make diversity and inclusion considerations part of the business as usual, particularly as new areas of work arise and changes to our policies, projects and investment decisions are made.
Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)
The PSED is the part of the Equality Act 2010 which requires public bodies and organisations that ‘carry out public functions’ to consider everyone’s needs in their day to-day work. For instance, Network Rail now needs to think about how to ensure that our stations and footbridges accessible for our older and disabled customers.
What is a Diversity Impact Assessment (DIA)?
The Diversity Impact Assessment is a step-by-step process that gathers information about a project or business change and who is likely to be affected by it. It’s the method we have chosen to embed thinking about diversity and inclusion, and to demonstrate that we’re meeting our Public Sector Equality Duty. Like a risk assessment process, a DIA is a tool that helps any programmes, policies, and projects – and the way that services are designed, built, and operated – to work well for employees and passengers.
It anticipates the likely effects of the work on the characteristics protected by the Equality Act: age; disability; sex; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sexual orientation; and marriage and civil partnerships – in short, everyone.
The purpose of doing this is to identify the actions we need to take to improve performance, either by eliminating any potential or actual discrimination or disadvantage, remove or mitigate barriers, or taking opportunities to promote equality and foster good relations.
Using DIAs to increase our knowledge of passengers and understanding of the potential barriers to access means we can enhance safety and performance and deliver a better railway for our customers.
If you are interested in whether a DIA has been completed on a project you are interested in, contact us at DiversityImpactAssessment@networkrail.co.uk or contact Freedom of Information for more information FOI@networkrail.co.uk