- Published:
- Thursday, 21 March 2024 at 9:00 am
At Victoria Legal Aid, we’re committed to promoting cultural diversity and tackling racism in all its forms.
As an organisation, we recently reflected on whether we’re making progress in our efforts.
Diversity and inclusion consultancy, MindTribes, evaluated our Cultural Diversity and Anti-Racism (CDAR) Action Plan 2020–23 and its impact.
They examined the plan’s effectiveness in addressing racism and empowering culturally diverse staff and clients, consulting almost 90 staff members across our organisation.
The final report commended our commitment to being a culturally diverse and anti-racist organisation, which the authors say ‘sets a benchmark for others to follow’ and ‘reaffirms [Victoria Legal Aid’s] role as a leader and strong advocate for equality within the legal and justice sector.’
They found that, on a broad organisational level, we’ve achieved some positive change for individual staff experience but need to do more to combat racism at a systemic level.
General findings
In consultations, staff said the plan has brought some structure and visibility to our anti-racism efforts and a platform for diverse voices to be heard. They also noted more ways to raise concerns and observed visibly more diverse people in the organisation, including some at senior levels.
‘I think an important element of this strategy has been to create a framework for us to make visible the structural discrimination and the structural racism in our society, which inevitably is part of our organisation too. So, it's given us platform to make other voices and other experiences visible and it's given us a way to think about our response that is more than ad hoc.’ – Victoria Legal Aid staff member
However, the review found that the plan would not have the intended effect of overcoming systemic and structural racism in its current form and recommends improvements.
The report calls for a deeper analysis of power structures in the organisation and greater diversity at the senior executive and board levels. It also recommends more clarity on what ‘anti-racism’ means for specific jobs and job-relevant actions to combat racism.
‘The language used may be familiar to experts in this field but even to me as a lawyer I found the language difficult to process and interpret how this would be reflected practically.’ – Victoria Legal Aid lawyer
It also suggests taking more proactive measures that nurture an inclusive culture over the current reactive approach, and greater accountability at all levels, including by defining specific metrics to measure progress.
‘I think the leaders in the organisation and I could include myself in that, need to hold themselves to account for what we have said we would do, … because I think culturally in [Victoria Legal Aid], there’s a bit of a position where people desire to do very well, … but I think on the ground, in practise, we often are not able to deliver what we have indicated we would like to deliver, so the delivery piece has to be realistic.’ – Victoria Legal Aid leader
What’s next?
We’re committed to continuing our efforts on cultural diversity and anti-racism and will launch a new action plan later this year.
Our new plan will be informed by the evaluation report’s recommendations. The report advises us to take an intersectional and systems approach, apply a consistent change management process, consider our socio-political context and strengthen external relationships.
We also intend to develop an overarching diversity, equity and inclusion strategy that incorporates gender, disability and cultural diversity through an intersectional approach.
If you have any feedback or questions, please contact Associate Director, Diversity and Inclusion, Abby Sullivan at Abby.Sullivan@vla.vic.gov.au
Updated