Councillor Steve Darling, Councillor John Thomas, Kofi Yeboah-Aidoo and Rehan Uddin. 

The panel asked a range of questions to the representatives from South Devon College and the key points that came out of the questioning were: 

·                The college supports BAME students via its tutorial system and via a personal development programme which focuses on citizenship and equality and diversity. The college also does a lot to promote Black History Month, has an International Club, a country of the week and a focus on current affairs issues. The college did a lot on the Black Lives Matter issue and celebrates events such as Diwali at the College and offers cultural trips for students. 

·                The college has an Equality Working Group that focuses on all protected characteristics and meets regularly to review the experiences of BAME learners but the college does acknowledge that it could do more  

·                The college measures the success of these initiatives via the student voice and listens to students. The Senior Leadership Team meets once a month to review equality and diversity issues and to identify issues and gaps. In relation to staff that leave, exit interviews are held to determine any issues and the same is done with learners who leave South Devon College 

·                The college has a buoyant take up from adult students who have english as a second language  

·                The panel questioned whether students felt safe to voice concerns on race issues. The college explained that they have a system in place that allows students to raise issues anonymously or they can raise issues via the tutorial system with their tutor. Other mechanisms are also available such as student councils and specific groups such as young carers 

·                Staff can voice concerns via the robust policies in place via their manager or HR team and the college regularly reviews these policies to ensure they are best practice 

·                The college stated that in relation to race the culture of the college was explicit. This was backed up by its statement in response to George Floyd’s death in May 2020 

·                The panel asked about racist incidents at the college and the college stated that they were not seeing high levels of reporting but they are aware that there could be underreporting of incidents. However, the college did state that over the last 12 months they had no racist incidents with staff 

·                The panel questioned whether the college had measurable objectives on racial equality and they responded by stating that they had more work to do on this and that it was still work in progress. They explained that they wanted to do more work with BAME staff and learners to explore what the right actions and measures could be 

·                A member of the public asked the college what work they did with families of learners to address racism. The college stated that they already did lots of general work with parents and families but often  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.