EDI is about having the confidence to challenge and scrutinise in a robust way

In October we appointed Mac Alonge from The Equal Group as our first Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Advisor to the Executive Board and Council, delivering on a commitment we made in response to the independent culture review. Mac's appointment has now been extended, meaning he will continue working with us until the end of April 2025.

Mac, who has a background in economic regulation, set up The Equal Group seven years ago to focus on data-driven equality, diversity and inclusion, after spending a decade as a consultant in the energy and utilities sector. Their work focusses on building EDI confidence and capability in leaders, helping organisations to collect data to evaluate and learn how to make decisions using an equality, diversity and inclusion lens.

Mac recently shared some insights his vital work at the NMC: 

“EDI is easy for people to talk about and do nothing about. I am hopeful and optimistic that the world my young children grow up in will be better than the world that I grew up in, but somebody has to roll up their sleeves and do the work. That’s where the passion comes from; deeply believing this is fixable and that it’s everyone's responsibility to fix it.”

Since October, Mac has been working closely with the Executive Board and Council to make sure that decisions are given the right level of scrutiny and challenge from an EDI perspective:

“We’re looking holistically at what needs to be done, who needs to do it and how we start to hold people to account for making improvements that were set out in the 36 recommendations that came from the independent culture review and our commitment to wider cultural transformation. As a regulator, the public and professionals rely on the NMC and depend on it being a robust organisation, able to understand the different perspectives and different lived experiences that people have.”

Meanwhile, the wider Equal Group team has been reviewing and improving NMC policies so colleagues understand them and are using them correctly, in order to strengthen our EDI approach.

“We’re looking at what support line managers and senior leaders need to have the confidence and competence to challenge and scrutinise in a robust way. There is also a need to make sure that the wider workforce can hold leaders and each other to account for EDI improvements. A refreshed strategy with the right structure and support will be given to the EDI team, so it’s clear what the vision is and how we’re actively driving towards that goal.”

Mac said that relying heavily on data, which can be quantitative and/or qualitative, gives ‘a robust foundation to understand where we need to target our activities, our energy, our focus – enabling us to prioritise effectively. We must acknowledge that we can’t do everything at the same time’:

“We also need to retrospectively understand what's working and what’s not, so we can change, tweak or stop certain aspects. It’s challenging because there's so much going on at the NMC and significant amounts of change, both in terms of personnel, leadership and landscape. There are also upcoming reports to deal with as well as the historic things that have happened that people are still dealing with mentally, physically and emotionally.”

Despite the challenges, Mac has observed passion and commitment from colleagues who want to get to grips with what EDI looks like in their context:

“One of the positives has been just how keen people are to engage with the topic of EDI at the NMC. This is an opportunity to demonstrate how effective equality, diversity and inclusion can be. I was not naive coming into this and understood that there's a lot of work to be done. And whilst a lot of people might be daunted by that situation, I see it as a challenge and something that isn't impossible to solve.”

In the last couple of months Mac has presented to the Executive and Council his findings and recommended next steps, which will include a roll out of six new EDI learning modules across 2025, covering:

1. EDI Fundamentals

2. Conscious Inclusion

3. Inclusive Communication

4. Accessibility, Sensitivity and Inclusion

5. EDI for Leadership

6. EDI Policies and Procedures.

Each of these modules will be delivered across three levels:

• Foundation: for all staff
• Intermediate: for line managers, hiring managers and network leads
• Advanced: for senior and aspiring leaders.

“We want organisations to be able to stand alone and feel confident with EDI moving forward. That’s not just leaders but people in their day-to-day roles having the confidence and infrastructure there to support them to make effective EDI decisions.

“Improvements need to be made over the long term and I will engage with the new Interim Chief Executive and Registrar, Paul Rees, about his expectations and priorities.”

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