Many years ago I played in a guitar-based band. We had a strong set of songs and always pulled in good crowds for our gigs. After being approached by a few singers and brass players asking to join, we agreed. 

At first, this just involved keeping the same songs but sharing vocal duties and swapping the odd guitar solo with a sax one. What soon became clear, though, was that we weren’t making the most of this new talent. We had simply admitted them into our club but not really included them. Once we made that insight, things changed rapidly. Our set became more diverse and played to our new strengths, we attracted new audiences at new venues while keeping our old fans.

I have thought about this a lot in the past year. I made it my personal decision to lead the college on race equality because I realised it was an area where I was confusing inclusion and admission. I realised, in particular, that the college might have a reasonable story to tell on the numbers - student, staff and governor populations more diverse than our patch - but had we changed as this was achieved? Based on a few conversations with staff, it was clear that we had not. Our college was doing well on admission but otherwise we were the same college. Staff from minority groups felt safe and welcome, but still reported lower levels of belonging. We clearly have a way to go to move to inclusion.

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I write this article as a confession, in the hope that wiser people in the sector will help me to make faster progress. Over the year I have read a lot about the subject. I have engaged a mentor specifically to help me in this area. I feel very privileged to attend the working group convened by Jeff Greenidge, director for diversity for both the Association of Colleges and the Education and Training Foundation, an inspired joint appointment.

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Despite this, I feel I am struggling. Is it just me or is inclusion when it comes to race harder than for gender or disability? One of my heroes is scientist James Lovelock. He asks us to imagine a world where what you are trying to discover has already been achieved; then look for such places and identify the differences from where you are now.

There seem to be no end of examples for gender or disability-inclusive worlds, that are very different to non-inclusive ones. A gender-inclusive college would have different student and staff services to a non-inclusive one. It might have different work patterns and student timetables. A disability-inclusive college would be designed differently to a non-inclusive one; for example, in terms of accessibility and signage. The changes are easy to visualise and therefore achieve.

Similarly, a few years ago a local authority chief executive asked for my views on their proposed budget cuts. I said it was hard to comment without knowing what wasn’t being cut and why, but I suggested all the cuts were to services that particularly affected women, families, children and the disadvantaged, and wondered if, given that his entire senior team and most senior councillors were white, male and over 50, this might affect the areas chosen to cut. It just feels like some forms of non-inclusion are easier to spot.

Having said that, we have had some successes. Breaking down our approach to inclusion into specific forums to deal separately with gender, disability and race, and recruiting staff volunteers to lead on each, has been genuinely revelatory.

On the other hand, most of the improvements requested and identified in this particular area have focused on involvement and visibility, which still feels like improving levels of admission. Getting more people into positions of influence and listening harder seem to be the main changes that our staff want to see.

Perhaps we are just being impatient? Maybe the gradual improvement in visibility and involvement will bring with it the changes that take us to a better place? Feel free to share your thoughts on what more I can do and the limitations of my thinking. 

After all, it was only when we started asking our new band members what they would like to do that we uncovered new music and new harmonies that ramped up our enjoyment and made us all better players. Though even inclusion has its limits: we did draw the line when someone suggested we cover the Rubettes’ Sugar Baby Love!

Ian Pryce is principal and chief executive of the Bedford College Group