How our leadership supports the diversity of our organisation.
Directors and the Board
Our Directors Team and our Board provide visible leadership to ensure that our diversity strategy, activity and our approach are right for our organisation, that we remain ambitious and continually improve.
We report our progress on diversity annually to our Board and past annual reports can be found with our Board minutes 
2012 (January) Diversity Update - our current progress includes:
Diversity Strategy Group
Our ‘steering group’ is a team of Directors and Executive Managers who meet on a quarterly basis. Their role is to set the strategic direction for diversity, review progress and identify what additional focus or action needs to be taken. The group, accountable to the Directors and the Board, recommend actions and priorities and then report progress.
In 2007, the Diversity Strategy Group was a team of 15. There were 9 males and 6 females. One member had a disability, one member represented LGB, and one member was from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) community. Our sole employee network at the time was represented.
In 2012, the Diversity Strategy Group is a team of 21. There are 14 males and 7 females. Four members have a disability, 3 members represent LGB, and two members are from a BAME community. Our two employee networks and two employee forums are represented.
Executive Diversity Leads
They are our diversity ambassadors who engage with, inspire and promote our successes to our workforce, wider stakeholders and the public.
As champions they act as role models, taking actions when appropriate and addressing diversity behaviours when necessary. They ask questions to check that diversity in its broadest sense is being recognised, understood and considered as integral to what we do and how we do things.
They take personal responsibility for one or more of the protected characteristic groups and represent their respective employee network at the group meetings.
- Age - Mark McLaughlin, (Director of Finance) and Martin Weiler (Area Manager, Devon & Cornwall)
- Disability - Toby Willison (Regional Director, North West Region) and Robin Gaulton (Head of Evidence Services)
- Gender - Miranda Kavanagh (Director of Evidence), Lucy Hunt (Environment and Performance Manager) and Doug Wilson (Head of Research and Monitoring)
- Race and ethnicity - Mark McLaughlin and Junier Brown (Senior Advisor, Environment and Business)
- Religion and belief - Mark McLaughlin and Kate Marks (Head of Mapping, Modelling and Data)
- Sexual orientation and Gender identity - Lisa Pinney (Head of Strategic co-ordination) and Mark Sitton-Kent, (Regional Director, Midlands Region)
- Managers and team leaders - Andrew Pearce (Area Manager, Kent & South East London)
- Email the Executive Diversity Leads
Senior Executive Managers
How our leaders behave sets a crucial example and is vital to the success of driving diversity forward throughout our organisation.
They act as role models and provide additional strong leadership in actively promoting diversity. They are seen as embracing and creating an inclusive culture at the Environment Agency. They actively encourage the behavioural and cultural change necessary to embed diversity firmly into the business.
They lead from the front on diversity initiatives such as equality analysis and employee self-disclosure, whilst consistently raising diversity awareness in their own leadership team meetings. They embrace opportunities to celebrate diversity success and share good practice. During 2012, they will lead on our “eliminating unconscious bias” programme.
Environment & Performance Managers
Our Environment and Performance Managers work are at the front line of our business and work to ensure we have the support and toolkits which help embed diversity and inclusion into everything we do. Environment and Performance Managers are accountable for diversity planning and implementation at a regional and local level.
Diversity Centre of Expertise
We ensure we develop and retain our people and are an employer of choice for the best people regardless of their background or any protected characteristic.
We seek to integrate diversity into all of our activities and create an inclusive environment where everyone can fulfil their potential. Our aim is to go above and beyond our legal obligations and manage diversity effectively for the benefit of each individual, our organisation, and the communities we serve.
Our centre of expertise works with external organisations (e.g. Employers Forum on Age, Employers Forum on Belief, Employers Forum on Disability, Opportunity Now, Race for Opportunity and Stonewall) to ensure we adopt the best practice approaches to equality, diversity and inclusion. These partnerships provide us with the professional advice and guidance to embedding diversity into the way we work to achieve our business outcomes and benefit from our diversity.
We have policies on diversity and equality and non we have a flexible working policy which is open to all. Our centres of expertise work together to support our people are throughout their careers with mentoring, coaching programmes and a wide variety of skills training, all focused on developing our people and benefiting from diversity. To this end we work with our external partner to offer cross-organisational coaching support.
Our centre of expertise identifies the challenges we face, legal or otherwise. It develops our tools and initiatives (e.g. equality analysis, managing unconscious bias, self-disclosure) to help us benefit from the diversity of our workforce. It develops and maintains the external relationships necessary to ensure effective support for our Executive Diversity Leads and the delivery of required outcomes for the areas of diversity they lead on, It also works with the leaders of our employee networks and forums which play a key part in shaping our workplace culture. These groups provide our people with additional support and guidance, with networking opportunities and a forum to meet others with common interests.
Trade unions
We consult and negotiate with our trade unions and ensure that we agree the policies and procedures we apply to our employees remain legal. They provide advice, protect the interests of their members, and work in partnership with us to achieve our diversity aspirations, challenging us when necessary.
Employee Networks and Forums
Our networks and forums are important to our diversity success. More details of each of our networks and forums are in the ‘Our networks’ section.
