How we're changing
Anti-Racism Action Plan
Our Anti-Racism Action Plan
The Barbican is committed to anti-racism. We’re undergoing a process of transformation, and our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) sits at the heart of this. Our Anti-Racism Action Plan is an essential part of this work and will support us in establishing a foundation for anti-racism at the Barbican.
We recognise racism manifests in different ways. Our Anti-Racism Action Plan intends to address and tackle all forms of racism, discrimination and hatred. We hope that this practical approach to establishing anti-racism in our organisation will empower our staff to be confident in recognising and challenging racism that may occur within the Centre, online and beyond its walls. We believe that by removing barriers within the organisation we can play an important role in catalysing positive societal change.
This is a summary of our Anti-Racism Action Plan which sits within our EDI Strategy and Action Plan. We publish updates on our progress every six-months on our website.
Overview
Our Anti-Racism Action Plan was finalised in January 2024. It is a key part of our wider EDI Strategy and underlines our commitment to tackling racism.
The action plan was created in collaboration with our staff from the Global Majority who were able to shape and contribute to the plan through workshops, drop-in sessions and surveys. This collaboration has helped us to ensure that the plan is informed by and centres around understanding of lived experiences and builds commitment across the organisation to shape meaningful equity-based actions.
A significant portion of the action plan is dedicated to anti-racism learning and development opportunities for staff, to ensure that everyone across our organisation feels confident in understanding and implementing this work.
The plan will use a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress. These KPIs include factors such as staff training completion rates, zero tolerance reports and resolutions, and People Survey responses analysed by ethnicity.
Anti-Racism Action Plan
The Anti-Racism Action Plan consists of 17 actions split into five categories which align with the same themes of our overarching EDI Strategy and Action Plan.
These actions were created and informed with feedback from our Global Majority staff. Addressing them will support us to recognise and combat racism by creating policies, systems and processes which make the Barbican an inclusive space for all our staff, visitors and artists. We aim to have achieved these actions by 2027, at which point we will go through a process of review.
Our initial priorities for the plan include starting our procurement process to implement anti-racism training for our staff; establishing a Zero Tolerance reporting system to report and track incidents of racism, and to formalise a Global Majority sponsorship programme.
Our Anti-Racism Action Plan
Inclusive leadership and line management
We’re improving how we support our staff from the Global Majority, including their personal and professional development.
Our actions:
- Creating a system to track the progression of people’s careers, specifically highlighting Global Majority staff, to help us identify diversity gaps within our organisation and support career progression within the Centre.
- Benchmarking our staff diversity and identifying areas where it needs to improve.
- Establishing a sponsorship programme for Global Majority staff to enhance career development and progression.
Empowered and collaborative teams
We’ll work closely with our Global Majority Network and staff to include their vital contributions in our EDI work to make sure we have a more representative mix of people involved and vitally be informed by the voices they represent.
Our actions:
- Consolidating suggestions from our internal stakeholders.
- Commit to consulting with our staff on the Anti-Racism Action Plan’s progress on a six-monthly basis.
- Supporting the Global Majority Network in running key cultural and international events such as Black History Month.
- Establishing clearer opportunities through training for casual and junior members of staff to develop within the Barbican.
- Increasing the representation of casual workers in EDI decision making and staff diversity networks.
Data and analytics
We’re improving our EDI data to inform decision making and support us in targeting interventions. We will use data to track incidents of racism across the Centre and set comprehensive guidance for responding to any discrimination within the Barbican.
Our actions:
- Introducing a Zero Tolerance reporting system to report and track incidents of racism. This will increase transparency and accountability for the organisation and help to ensure appropriate measures are taken to protect staff, artists and audiences.
- Establish comprehensive guidance and support for dealing with complaints of racism which set out expectations from HR and the management team.
- Ethnicity pay gap reporting.
- Establishing six-monthly staff diversity reports.
A strategic approach to audiences
The Anti-Racism Action Plan will support our work in delivering our Audience Strategy. This includes providing more inclusive experiences for our audiences.
Our actions:
- Ensure that EDI is consistently embedded across artforms – including during planning and commissioning for exhibitions, shows, performances and events.
- Providing more inclusive food options including catering for different religions in our restaurant spaces.
Informing the people agenda
We’re providing bespoke anti-racism training to all our staff which will empower them to recognise and respond to incidents of racism and create a more equitable environment at the Barbican.
Our actions:
- Providing bespoke training to all staff, our leadership team and front of house staff including what to do during incidents of racism and how to support Global Majority colleagues.
- Introducing anti-racism training to the onboarding processes for new staff.
- Including anti-racism and EDI work into objectives during probation and appraisals.
