Our commitment to promoting equality and diversity

HMI Prisons is committed to promoting equality and diversity and improving outcomes for people detained in the establishments we inspect.

We are required under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out our work.

Our aims are:

• To report on the treatment and conditions of those with protected characteristics in custody.
• Have a workforce with the necessary expertise and sufficient diversity to reflect the community in which it operates.
• Develop a more flexible and supportive working environment which always seeks to include difference.
• Continue to build a confident and competent workforce who feel valued and heard.
• Deliver learning and development opportunities to our staff so they are equipped to understand, inspect, and make valid and relevant findings relating to equality and diversity.

To help achieve these aims, we have a cross-organisational Equality and Diversity Advisory Group (EDAG), chaired by the Deputy Chief Inspector, which meets quarterly and sets the agenda for our equality and diversity action plan as well as monitoring progress against it. The five key priorities of our action plan are:

• Improving recruitment and retention
• Improving staff well-being
• Better ways of working
• Better communication and transparency
• Considering equality and diversity as part of HMI Prisons’ wider work.

We are also committed to treating English and Welsh equally in institutions in Wales. Our approach to this is set out below.

Welsh language commitment

HM Inspectorate of Prisons inspects places of detention in England and Wales. We are committed to treating the languages of English and Welsh equally in institutions in Wales, and where our reports relate to institutions or people detained in Wales.

We will fulfil this commitment by:

• Offering our prisoner survey in Welsh to all detainees held in institutions in Wales, and to any prisoner in an institution in England who requests it.
• Translating all inspection reports and thematic reviews that cover institutions in Wales either at the same time as the English language version or as soon as possible afterwards.
• Publishing any other reports or materials, such as easy-read versions of inspection reports, that cover institutions in Wales, into Welsh at the same time as the English language version or as soon as possible afterwards.
• Publishing our annual report into Welsh, at the same time as the English language version or as soon as possible afterwards.
• Making it as easy as possible for people to find Welsh translations on our website.
• Promoting Welsh publications on Twitter in Welsh.
• Continuing to inspect Welsh language provision in Welsh institutions against HMPPS’s published commitments.