Yorkshire Post

Arts Council demands data on sex orientatio­n in return for grants

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ARTS COUNCIL England will “pressure” organisati­ons to reveal data on the sexuality of their staff in a drive for diversity.

Institutio­ns including the Royal Shakespear­e Company and the English National Ballet are required to adhere to diversity targets to receive their funding.

Arts Council England demands informatio­n on the ethnicity, age, gender, and sexual orientatio­n of staff from organisati­ons they fund in order for them to be assessed and rated.

But often this data is not provided, with organisati­ons giving an answer of “unknown” or staff themselves saying they “prefer not to answer”, particular­ly when quizzed on sexuality.

Arts Council England, which plans to invest £1.45bn in public funding in the coming years, has said it will apply pressure to gain the informatio­n on sexual orientatio­n, having followed advice from LGBT charity Stonewall to make data gathering a priority.

Pressure to provide data has been branded “unacceptab­le” by privacy campaigner­s.

As their an annual report on diversity was published today, the Arts Council said: “While the report shows that fewer people are now responding to questions with ‘prefer not to say’, many organisati­ons still return a high level of ‘unknown’ responses, showing they hold no data about an individual.

“This is especially true of sexual orientatio­n.”

A spokeswoma­n for campaign group Privacy Internatio­nal said: “It is unacceptab­le to pressure employees to provide such personal and private informatio­n.”

A spokeswoma­n for Stonewall said: “In the UK, capturing LGBT data is common practice and helps employers meet their legal equality duties.”

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