The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, USA, in May 2020 dramatically intensified the spotlight on the topic of racism throughout western society. This moment built on the tireless work of countless individuals, communities and movements, including the Black Lives Matter movement. Some of the actions sparked included an opening up of conversations and a re-evaluation of how organisations were really addressing and challenging the endemic racism that exists in society.
Like many organisations, METRO embarked on a journey to understand how racism might be playing out across our own team, structures and processes. After some initial internal steps, and hearing the concerns of racialised team members, we decided that external support would be key.
In April 2022, we commissioned JEDI Consultancy to guide and support us through this work - furthering our understanding, acknowledging our past, and helping us towards becoming an actively anti-racist organisation.
JEDI led a listening exercise, collating the perspectives of staff and trustees across the charity through a survey, interviews and focus groups to produce the interim report below.
The report is difficult reading and highlights some serious internal issues that we need to urgently address. We are disappointed that we have clearly let down our colleagues and we are very sorry that we have enabled a culture where our racialised team members have had these unacceptable experiences.
At the bottom of this page you can read responses to the findings in this report from both our Chair & Board of Trustees, and from our CEO.
We will be taking the following key actions:
- Providing a package of support for our staff, focused around the impact of the release of the report, facilitated by JEDI
- Alerting our partners, funders and commissioners to the findings of this report and our plans to address them
- Recruiting a Head of Equality Diversity and Inclusion, sitting in our Senior Leadership Team, to lead on our work in becoming an actively anti-racist organisation
- Creating a Race Equity Strategy Group drawing from all parts of our team, with contributions being paid, and facilitated by the new head role
- Tendering and commissioning for further external support and development for our staff as we continue on this journey
- Further diversification of our recruitment channels to reach racially diverse candidates
- Review of our policies
- Reinforcing awareness of channels for raising concerns and providing feedback, including the option to do this anonymously
- Registering the findings of the report as a serious incident with the Charity Commission
We would like to thank members of the team who have taken the time and energy to share their experiences with JEDI. Their input has been crucial in informing the work we need to undertake on our journey to becoming an actively anti-racist organisation.
Chair & Board of Trustees Cover Note to JEDI Race Audit Report