Pride in London slams accuracy of advisory board's inclusion report

Pride in London have hit back at the accuracy of the report by the group it created to advise on decisions of inclusion, governance and operational issues.

Pride in London slams accuracy of advisory board's inclusion report 1

A recent report by the Pride In London Community Advisory Board (CAB) has been slammed by officials at Pride In London for not being accurate and disrespectful to the many volunteers who help make the event happen.

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In the report, the CAB suggested that future prides in the capital need to focus on the bisexual, BAME and other marginalised groups amongst other suggestions.

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A spokesperson for PIL said,

“We deliberately gather feedback from many sources, including our volunteers and the wider community through open meetings, surveys and online reporting.

“We do not believe the CAB report reflects the majority view nor takes in to account these other sources of data, it is also inaccurate in many places which is disrespectful to the many volunteers that work hard to deliver the event. Their report was not shared with us in advance and therefore we were not able to correct these inaccuracies.

“We will be looking at each of the points they raise and we have invited them to meet with us.

“Unfortunately the CAB has suffered from some long standing vacancies (such as a women’s rep), which has adversely affected its ability to provide us with consistently strong and balanced guidance.

Who are the CAB?

The Community Advisory Board was established by Pride in London’s owners, London LGBT Community Pride CIC to give it advice on how to improve engagement and to act as a sounding board on difficult or contentious issues.

The spokesperson for Pride continued,

“Since the collapse of London’s Pride event in 2012; under community ownership, Pride in London has become one of the world’s largest and most successful Pride events.

“It remains volunteer-led and free to attend and enjoys strong support from agencies, partners and sponsors. Diversity and inclusion is at the core of all we do, from deciding on acts to perform, to volunteer recruitment but we are not complacent and are always looking at ways to do more.

“We believe we now have a strong foundation to continue to make progress in improving on diversity and inclusion amongst other issues.

“Already this year, we were able to represent our community in new ways through our Pride in London Live series reaching millions through social platforms, our largest and most diverse Pride Festival and Parade, and our first ever national TV adverts reaching millions of UK homes.

“We are also proud to have achieved Silver Accreditation from Attitude is Everything which recognises the standards of accessibility of the main event.

“We’re looking forward to announcing our vision and plan for the next 5 years of Pride in London. The LGBTQ+, community will remain at the heart of everything we do and we constantly strive to do better at representing and supporting it.”

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