44 ACCREDITATION PROGRAMMES
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C ommitted 2 Equality
Supplier Diversity in action
Public sector organisations may have already taken some internal steps to demonstrate that they are employing fairly and that they will comply with the forthcoming Equality Bill *, but what do you do to ensure that fair employment and equality practices are in place across the entire supply chain? And what do you do if you wish to continue to supply public sector organisations?
Commited2Equality( C2E), one of the UK’ s leading not-for-profit equality accreditation organisations— founded in 2004 as a direct result of the recommendations of the IPPR Race Task Force— continues to work closely with central government to champion and promote fair employment practices. C2E has developed unique Diversity Assured and Supplier Diversity Accreditation programmes that enable organisations and their suppliers to demonstrate that they are employing fairly.
The Equality Bill includes specific references to companies supplying the public sector, which will“ require public bodies to tackle discrimination and promote equality through their purchasing functions.” Given that the public sector spends £ 160 billion on private sector contracts there is an economic for imperative for suppliers to the public sector to demonstrate equality and fair employment credentials.
* The Equality Bill will be covered in more detail in Issue 08 uk | engage ISSUE SEVEN 2008