As with so many people around the world, Governors at Wiltshire College & University Centre have been shocked by the death of George Floyd and other recent tragic events in America.

It is quite clear that we must all think fundamentally about the race discrimination issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is rightly highlighting and the actions we can take to eradicate all forms of inequality.

In education we have a special responsibility to take action to ensure that there is real equality of opportunity for all our students and staff and to promote equality and inclusion and challenge racism and all forms of prejudice strongly; in this regard the College’s ‘Safe and respectful culture’ is a concept we strive to embed in everything we do.

Through the Code of Good Governance in English Colleges the Governing Body is already committed not only to meeting statutory requirements in this area but to exceeding them wherever we are able to. But we really need to make sure that we are doing all that we can. As a start, and in conjunction with the College’s senior management, we will undertake a thorough review of the College’s equality and diversity policy next term and ensure that improving equality, diversity and inclusion is a clear theme in the new Strategic Plan that will be developed during next year.

As a Governing Body we have identified Inclusion as a key behavioural value for ourself and we will be developing specific measures that we will commit to trying to deliver to improve diversity in our Board and to more regularly address inclusion matters. In this way, we at least hope to start properly trying to tackle the race discrimination issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is bringing out so clearly.