Guidance

DAO equality of opportunity policy

Updated 17 November 2022

Recognising Quality and Competence: Supporting Defence with accreditation and specialist bespoke qualification opportunities

1. Context

The Defence Awarding Organisation (DAO) is located at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, and was set up in 2014 to provide vocational qualifications to members of the armed forces (regular and reserve) and to Ministry of Defence civil servants. The DAO’s vision is to be recognised as the awarding organisation of choice for the defence community.

The DAO develops and provides nationally and internationally recognised qualifications from Levels 2 to 7 on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF). The DAO approve centres to deliver its regulated qualifications through current education and training programmes. The DAO is responsible, and reports annually, to the Office of Qualifications and Examination Regulation (Ofqual).

This policy covers the principles of equality of opportunity within all the products and services provided by DAO including:

• centre approval process
• qualification design, development and award
• assessment design, development and delivery
• monitoring of qualifications and assessment practice
• reasonable adjustments and special consideration

This policy does not cover the employment procedures for DAO. These are covered by the Ministry of Defence. The policy will be reviewed annually and revised as necessary in response to changes in legislation, customer feedback and guidance from Ofqual.

2. Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to set the DAO’s commitment to providing qualifications and assessments that ensures everyone who is eligible and wishes to gain one of the DAO qualifications has an opportunity to do so and to ensure DAO is in line with Ofqual’s General Condition of Recognition, Conditions A1.2, B1.3, C2, D2 & G6.

Within the meaning and scope of Equality Law (Equality Act 2010), DAO will take all reasonable steps to ensure that no activities unlawfully discriminate across the protected characteristics. The 9 protected characteristics within Equality Law cannot be used as a reason to treat people unfairly. The protected characteristics are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• racial group
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

Every person has one or more of the protected characteristics, so the Law protects everyone against unfair treatment by setting out the different ways in which it is unlawful to treat someone, such as direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, victimisation or failing to make a reasonable adjustment for a disabled person.

3. Putting the policy into practice

The DAO will:

• apply the principles of fair access by design methods
• ensure appointments are conducted in accordance with Equality Law
• ensure all Centres have Centre Agreements in place to meet Equality Law requirements
• not discriminate, victimise, or harass any individual or groups identified within the Equality Law
• monitor and review the effectiveness of this policy and look for ways of improving it
• make this policy available to staff, external contractors and learners, and publicise it clearly on DAO GOV.UK website
• arrange development events for staff and external contractors involved in the development and quality assurance of DAO qualifications and assessment

The DAO will also conduct Equality Impact Assessments on qualifications and assessment methods during development ensuring no examples of potentially unjustifiable barriers exist; for example:

• use of unnecessarily complex language
• all examinations handwritten, learner is blind
• use of diagrams or pictures that are distracting or are hard to see
• tasks that disadvantage learners who have not had particular experiences, where these are not relevant to the knowledge, skills and understanding being assessed
• assessments of skills that are not relevant to the learning outcomes
• requirements to demonstrate skills in contexts that are not essential for the qualification
• use language in materials that is clear, free from bias, do not cause offence, and appropriate to the target group
• collect and monitor all available data relating to learner achievement to detect accidental bias.
• ensure Centres have their own fair access and equality policy, and we will monitor the Centre’s adherence to their policy
• ensure Centres utilise Reasonable Adjustments, when approved, for appropriate situations
• monitor equality opportunities at centres and respond as necessary
• ensue Centre staff are current with mandatory training.

4. What to do if you need to discuss Equality issues

If a Learner wishes to discuss an equality issue, then they should contact the appropriate person eg, Internal Quality Assurer or Centre Coordinator, at their respective DAO Centre. If the specific equality issue relates to the assessment being undertaken by their Centre then the Learner should write, or email: DEFAC-DAO@mod.gov.uk to the Business Co-ordinator at the following address:

Defence Awarding Organisation
Defence Academy of the UK
Room TF08 Trenchard
Shrivenham
Swindon
SN6 8LA

If a representative from one of the DAO Centres wishes to discuss an equality issue, then they should write, or email, to the DAO Business Co-ordinator at the address above.

5. Useful Contacts

A copy of the Equality Act 2010 can be found on the HMSO website. Advice on equality can be found on the Equality and Human Rights Commission website or in Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland website.

6. Review of the Policy

This policy will be reviewed annually and revised as necessary in response to changes in legislation and guidance from Ofqual.