European Social Fund Gender Equality and Equal opportunities Mainstreaming Plan For England and Gibraltar 2007-2013

This plan aims to:

• reinforce and support the commitments made in the 2007-2013 England and Gibraltar ESF Operational Programme to mainstream gender equality and equal opportunities;

• provide the national ESF Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities Sub Committee with a management tool and point of reference for assessing progress in mainstreaming gender equality and equal opportunities;

• propose objectives which support the achievement of equality targets and to contribute, in particular, to increasing the female participation rate for the second half of the programme period.

  This plan is designed primarily as a management tool for mainstreaming gender equality in the ESF Operational Programme (OP). The OP explains that the mainstreaming approach for the current ESF programme aims to integrate gender equality and equal opportunities into the key programme processes of:

  (a) planning;

  (b) implementation;

  (c) monitoring; and

  (d) evaluation.

  The ESF OP also explains that ESF aims to promote a `dual’ approach to mainstreaming, i.e.:

  • horizontal mainstreaming of equality -all projects / providers take equality into account ,using equality policies and equality mainstreaming implementation plans as tools to help actively promote equality and 

  help meet ESF regulatory obligations as well as the general duty of the Equality Act 2010 ; and

  • vertical mainstreaming – a number of projects providing specialised support for specific equality groups.

  The approaches adopted at programme and delivery level aim to ensure that the programme complies with the various domestic and EU legislative requirements as well as the Structural Fund’s own regulatory requirements