Centre for Equalities and Inclusion

The Centre for Equalities and Inclusion comprises a team of statisticians, qualitative and social researchers and operational delivery professionals working flexibly to respond quickly to emerging priorities.

We are a multi-disciplinary convening centre, bringing together people interested in equalities data and analysis from across central and local government, academia, business and the third sector.

Our aim is to ensure that data and evidence are available to explore how protected characteristic groups and others at risk of disadvantage are affected by current social and policy issues and how multiple characteristics come together to shape people's experiences.

We bring together multi-disciplinary project teams to take forward relevant pieces of work. If you have an idea for collaboration or would like to receive regular updates from us, please get in touch.

Since October 2020, the Centre has been supporting the work of the Inclusive Data Taskforce (IDTF), an independent group of senior academics and civil society leaders tasked by the National Statistician with developing recommendations on how to make a step-change in the inclusivity of UK data.

Their main report and the response from the National Statistician are now publicly available, as are the findings from the consultation activities undertaken to support their work. We will be working with others across government and more widely to develop and implement a detailed work plan to take forward their recommendations, which we will publish in January 2022.

As part of the work to support the IDTF, the Centre has established a Qualitative Research Team. This team aims to provide evidence and insights into the lives and circumstances of people from the main relevant groups and populations and others at risk of disadvantage.

We have also launched our Equalities Data Navigator Tool, a searchable, interactive online tool to enable researchers to find the equalities data they need. It includes datasets from across the UK and is an extension to our Equalities Data Audit; we first published the audit in 2018, to look at the availability of data across the protected characteristics in the Equality Act (2010) and other characteristics of relevance to equalities.

We continue to be committed to developing and maintaining both the audit and the navigator tool and will continue to publish updates to both on a regular basis, particularly as new and improved data become available. We welcome feedback on both to help us improve them.

The Centre is supporting the Government Equalities Office (GEO) to deliver the Equality Data Programme, announced by Liz Truss in December 2020. The initial phase of the work will look at how outcomes vary across different groups for a broad range of outcomes including health, justice and living standards. Alongside the ONS Integrated Data Service, we are also supporting GEO with the second phase of the work, to develop an Equality Data Asset. This will link together data from multiple different sources to build a picture of how people’s lifepaths are shaped in the UK.

Our international work includes chairing the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Taskforce on Measuring Social Exclusion. We also represent the UK on the UNECE Taskforce on Statistics for Children, Adolescents and Youth, which is due to report in summer 2022. In addition, we participate in the UNECE Steering Group on Gender Statistics, which is currently developing guidance on measuring the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on women and men.

We have a newsletter that brings together the work of the Centre as well as wider teams across the ONS in the equalities sphere. To subscribe, please email equalities@ons.gov.uk. You can also subscribe by selecting the “Equalities” option from the available subscription topics under ONS email alerts.

Dawn Snape: Head of the Centre for Equalities and Inclusion

Phone: +44 1633 455674
Twitter: @DawnSnape_ONS

Shona Horter: Head of Qualitative Research

Phone: +44 20 8039 0345

Paola Serafino: Head of Equalities Data and Methods Development

Phone: +44 1633 651538

Email: equalities@ons.gov.uk