2019 Solheim Cup: equality impact assessment

Recommendations and Conclusions

To address the opportunities set out above the following actions are being delivered during the Solheim Cup 2019 by the Scottish Government, VisitScotland, IMG Golf and a range of other partners.

Intersectional

Proactively encourage participation via marketing campaign, press releases, meetings with national inclusion charities representatives and targeted newsletters.

As part of Scotland initiative to tackle period poverty, sanitary products will be provided free of charge during the event in all female toilets for staff, media, volunteers, hospitality guests and visitors.

Gender

Promotion of the 2019 Solheim Cup as the culmination of a fantastic year for women's sport in Scotland, which will enhance the profile of women's sport both domestically and globally. See more at : https://www.visitscotland.org/news/2019/women-in-sport.

A specific example of promotion is a feature on Catriona Matthew, the European Solheim Cup captain, on Scotland Is Now, Scotland's global marketing campaign, as part of a series on high profile sporting women: https://www.scotland.org/features/spotlight-women-in-sport-catriona-matthew. As was the case with similar articles promoting the event, this feature was promoted by Solheim Cup partners in order to ensure a wide reach.

Aberdeen Standard Investments will host their 5^th annual Diversity Summit on 10 September at Gleneagles, as part of Solheim Cup week. The Diversity Summit will feature high profile, inspiring speakers and will focus on promoting women and addressing inequality. The First Minister has welcomed the Diversity Summit, saying: "I'm particularly pleased that Aberdeen Standard Investments has come on board to host their annual Diversity Summit during The Solheim Cup week. They share Scotland's commitment to raising the international profile of women's golf and addressing the inequalities that continue to exist across society."

VisitScotland has introduced the world's first golf tourism campaign aimed at female golfers. #HerScotland is designed to showcase that Scotland is an open and accessible destination for traveling female golfers with the objective of growing the number of women coming to Scotland to play.

Through extensive TV coverage the event will showcase women's sport. There will be live coverage in the UK and worldwide. In addition, this is the first Solheim Cup for which the BBC will show a highlights package, extending the reach of the event to terrestrial viewers.

The PING Junior Solheim Cup will be held at the same venue as the main competition, earlier in Solheim Cup week (Tuesday 10^th and Wednesday 11^th). It is unusual for the event to take place in the same week at the same venue, and serves to showcase the skills of the young women playing, particularly with school parties in the local area and across the country coming for free to watch the action.

Efforts were made to promote the event to girls/women as a volunteering opportunity. As a result the gender split of volunteers at the event is approximately 60% female, 40% male. This is unusual for volunteering at golf events, which tends to heavily skewed towards boys/men.

Disabled and Older People

An accessibility guide has been prepared for the Solheim Cup (see https://www.accessibilityguides.org/content/solheim-cup-2019-9th-15th-september).

Headlines actions to welcome disabled and older people include:

- Level access from the main entrance to:

• Dining Table
• Spectator Village
• Spectator Bar
• Car Park 3A
• Merchandise Shop
• Hospitality

- Viewing area for wheelchair users and people with limited mobility.

- Accessible toilet & Changing places toilets.

- Draw sheets available in large print.

- Concessionary ticket rate for disabled visitors and personal assistants can attend free of charge.

- Team Leaders, Access Buddies and Key front line staff have had disability awareness training as well as Autism Awareness Training.

- There are specific stewards to help disabled visitors.

- Detailed access focused information provided on getting to the site and getting around the site.

- Access buddies present at all entry points to the event.

- All volunteers to be provided with some key disability awareness training.

- Fleet of mobility scooters and wheelchairs provided free of charge for hire.

- Autism friendly quiet zone provided.

- Facilities for assistance dogs provided.

- Euan's Guide consulted as part of event planning. https://www.euansguide.com/

- Closed captions on screen when/where possible and during the Opening Ceremony.

Young people

-Young people under 16 years old go free when accompanied by a paying adult.

-Concession rate for 17-18 years old and students

-Family zone with baby changing facilities

-Provision of free nappies

Women & Girls

• A Golf Development Plan has been created to capture the activity being undertaken by project partners in support of the event's objectives of increasing opportunities and support for women and young people, in particular girls, to participate in the sport
• While every activity in the Plan has a relative legacy impact of raising awareness of the event and of the sport, many are part of a longer-term strategy by partners to use the Solheim Cup as a springboard for change in the months and years following the event.
• Seeking to increase female and junior membership by 15,000 by the end of 2021, the appointment of the Scottish Golf Women and Young People Golf Development Manager, who will be in post until the end of 2020, will accelerate development activities to increase female and junior membership, participation levels and the number of women involved in golf.
• The Scottish Golf Young Leaders Awards will increase the number of young females in volunteering roles in golf clubs and critically increase the number of young females doing Level 1 coaching until at least 2021. The creation of a new entry level UKCC qualification targeting females aged 14 – 25 delivered over 3 years across all local authorities, will hope to achieve a sustainable model for continuation beyond 2021 through collaboration with Active Schools.
• Increasing women in club roles - The Solheim Cup Club Ambassador Programme will promote ticket sales through incentives, benefits and clubs activities through new ambassadors. While the programme is specific to this event it will potentially increase the number of women involved in future committee roles. With a target of 150 club ambassadors in post achieved, this network of members will increase connections between women in clubs positions and provide future opportunities for similar programmes.
• Scottish Golf will continue to run their Regional Club Forums following the Solheim Cup, using the R&A Women in Golf Charter and Solheim Cup messaging to influence positive change at clubs. Since January 2019 we have currently seen 53 clubs sign up to the charter with 4 regional forums staged and over 60 clubs in attendance.
• Women and Girls National Club Workshops – Use the Solheim Cup and R&A Women in Golf Charter as the platform to deliver a series of regional club workshops designed to influence clubs into taking positive action to address the challenges of recruiting more female golfers

LGBTI community

Gender neutral toilets provided.