2011 Census Community Engagement Team, Office for National Statistics

A key objective of the 2011 Census in England and Wales was to maximise census participation and minimise differences in return rates in specific areas and among particular population groups. Research showed that groups undercounted in 2001 had concerns or misunderstandings about the census or barriers, such as lack of English.

A mapping exercise was undertaken by the Census Community Engagement Team, including in-house, independent and partnership research. They carried out analysis of demographic data, UK and international best-practice community engagement work, information from census equality impact assessments, and lessons from previous census tests.

Community panels were established for in-depth consultation with specialist community networks. A Diversity Advisory Group conducted road shows, in partnership with CLG equality and diversity teams. A community engagement toolkit was developed, and 157 individual local community engagement plans formulated by census area managers in partnership with all local authorities.

Recruitment goals were set so that the census fieldforce was representative of the local community, and all 28,000 census field staff were trained on diversity issues (including elderly, literacy, etc). Forty-one community advisers were appointed specialising on ethnic groups to do direct mapping, targeting and local engagement (meetings, media engagement) in partnership with local authorities and community groups/networks.

Engaged communities became so motivated they resourced engagement themselves. The Chinese community sponsored Chinese media events, with stalls at high-level events such as Chinese New Year. The Indian Ravidassia community produced 10,000 leaflets; national presentations (English and Punjabi); online videos and Facebook/Twitter campaigns. There was a census engagement ceremony by national leaders at House of Commons; the national Be Counted campaign, and census-completion events at every temple.

Partnerships with influential and strategic disability organisations included RNIB, Deaf Connections, People First, Scope and CAB at national and local levels, and resulted in targeted information campaigns and signposting to helplines and facilities provided. Census questions were translated into 56 languages, available to order and download. Accessible materials including Braille and audio guidance, and a large-print questionnaire developed with RNIB, and orderable online. Ten times the number of large-print questionnaires were requested (5,000) as in 2001.

Violence Against Women Scrutiny Panel, Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands

The CPS Violence against Women (VAW) Scrutiny Panel has been a beacon of excellence, both in the field of community engagement and addressing violence against women. The panel brings community stakeholders into the CPS to jointly review finalised VAW cases from domestic violence to rape, serious sexual violence, forced marriages and honour-based crimes.

The panel has raised awareness amongst community stakeholders of how and why prosecution decisions are made. It has increased learning amongst CPS staff of how cases might be handled better, and increased understanding of the CPS decision-making processes in relation to violence against women. In so doing it has increased the confidence of communities, thereby encouraging victims and witnesses to come forward to report incidents and stay with the legal process to its conclusion.

The Domestic Violence Scrutiny Panel hosted a conference, Moving Forward, on March 6 to share the annual lessons learnt and extend good practice to communities and criminal justice agencies. Over 100 delegates attended. Workshops and presentations on the background of the panel were presented by panel members and CPS staff. It was an opportunity to disseminate and consult on the Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police Domestic Violence Protocol. This included the service standards agreed jointly with West Midlands Police and a domestic violence checklist to raise staff awareness.

The success of the panel has led to subsequent projects, from developing a city-wide strategy to address forced marriages, protocols for sharing information to support survivors and VAW publicity campaigns during InternationalWomen’s Day, website information-sharing and social media campaigns. The panel regularly reviews its outcomes to improve the lives of survivors and CPS staff, and the equality and diversity manager has been rewarded as a CPS ambassador on the Birmingham Violence against Women Executive.

Ian Cheeseman, Jennifer Segal and Geoff Sharland, New Asylum Model+ Quality and Learning Team, UK Border Agency

The team made a massive effort to deliver huge improvements to the way in which caseowners are prepared to consider applications from applicants seeking asylum on the grounds of their sexual orientation. They needed to develop radically different and new guidance to reflect the Supreme Court decision and also to tackle some of the cultural issues arising from Stonewall’s No Going Back report.

This was then completely supported by the design, testing and rollout of a brand new training module which has been delivered to all caseowners and managers and has received substantial critical acclaim from caseowners and corporate partners alike. This was a significant task requiring commitment and ingenuity to deliver. It was delivered not least by a genuine and open engagement with corporate partners.

The team were faced with a real challenge to implement new policy; address new legal instructions and address some substantial cultural issues raised in a critical external report. They demonstrated real personal commitment to accept some uncomfortable messages and needed to develop their own cultural awareness to ensure they did the best job. They showed real passion and determination to understand how they could best help the needs of those seeking asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation and put that knowledge into practice to develop better systems and processes.

Key to their success was their complete openness and transparency with corporate partners, involving them in workshops and consultation, so as to ensure not just that their views were taken into account but that they were much more proactive in addressing their concerns and encouraging and accepting corporate partners’ ideas on improving. All of the team could have easily become defensive of work that was already taking place but were able to demonstrate a real willingness to learn and push boundaries.

They demonstrated that they had the skills and knowledge to consider equality and could proactively engage and develop understanding of their target audience to produce demonstrable and positive results.