Evidence Diversity Monitoring

Diversity and inclusion are at the core of representative democracy. Parliaments have a duty to make decisions informed by experiences, needs, and views that reflect the diversity of the people and communities they serve. Scrutiny, representation and decision-making are stronger and more effective if they are rooted in a variety of different perspectives and lived experiences.

What do we mean by diversity?

Diversity comes in many forms. We want to make sure that the evidence used by Senedd committees comes from a diverse and inclusive range of people, communities, sectors, groups and organisations - especially those that are affected by an issue under consideration.

Diversity monitoring

On 3 July 2023, Chairs’ Forum considered the results of the second pilot, and agreed to roll out routine collection of this data from September 2023.

Ahead of deciding to move to continuous monitoring, the Chairs’ Forum considered the results of the second pilot (run from October 2022 to May 2023) and a report on this data has now been published.

From November 2021 until April 2022 Senedd committees ran a first pilot project to monitor the diversity of committee evidence. A summary of this first pilot can be seen in this Research Article.