Diversity and Inclusion at British Canoeing

British Canoeing is committed to ensuring that as an employer, we create a culture whereby inclusion is embedded in all we do, and recognise that diversity is essential to our success as an organisation.

British Canoeing undertakes Equality Monitoring of our staff annually, as well as conducting a staff survey. Equality Monitoring allows British Canoeing to understand where we have under-representation of any demographics, and monitor how changes to policy and delivery has impacted on the make-up of our staff body. The staff survey collects information from staff on their thoughts about our equality, diversity and inclusion work, both as an employer and our delivery to the paddlesport community.

We discuss the diversity of our organisation in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Board Diversity

British Canoeing supports and recognises the importance of diversity in its broadest sense throughout its organisation, including on its Board. The Board undergoes Equality training in order to ensure that the organisation's approach to diversity and inclusion is up to date and in keeping with best practice. This will next be delivered in 2023.

A diverse organisation will value and benefit from differences in paddling and sports skills, regional and industry experience, background, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, belief and age, as well as culture and personality. Currently, in accordance with the mandatory requirements of the Code for Sports Governance, 33% of the British Canoeing Board is represented by women. British Canoeing will continue to proactively encourage diverse candidates for Board roles and improve gender equality.

In order to drive greater diversity, the Board has agreed an action plan which will be reviewed annually. During this review, the Board will monitor progress against the actions below and discuss updates required for the next year. The Board is firmly committed to progressing towards achieving gender parity and achieving greater diversity on its Board, including, but not limited to, ethnic diversity, LGBTQ+ representation and disability representation. Our objectives for board diversity are:

• Focus on encouraging diverse high calibre candidates for Board level roles. 

• Consider candidates for Board appointments from a wide pool. 

• Ensure Board appointment ‘long lists’ include diverse candidates. 

• Report against these objectives and other initiatives to promote diversity annually. 

• Report annually on the outcome of the Board evaluation including progress on achieving gender parity and greater diversity on the Board.

Useful downloads – Board Diversity Statement and Action Plan