Equality and diversity

ARB is committed to operating in accordance with recognised principles of Equality and Diversity (E&D). We operate in accordance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, which means we must have due regard for the need to operate to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between different people when carrying out our activities. We collect and publish E&D information about those on the Register of Architects. We also collect this information from other key stakeholders, such as those bringing complaints about architects. We use the information we collect to review our own processes to ensure that we are not adversely discriminating against an individual or group and, where possible, we publish aggregate E&D data about architects for others in the sector to use to inform thinking and debate.

In 2016, we improved our ability to collect this data by adding a function to the website to enable registrants to submit this data whilst accessing our online services to update their details. This proved successful and by the early 2017, we held E&D data for 47% of registrants, which represents a substantial increase on the data we held for 35% of registrants at the end of 2016. A breakdown of the information held about those on the Register of Architects can be found in section seven of this Board report. We also collect information from other key stakeholders, such as those bringing complaints about architects, so that we can ensure that our own procedures and decision making processes do not discriminate against any particular group.