Police force tops league of "gay-friendly" employers

Staffordshire Police is the country's most "gay-friendly" employer, according to the Stonewall campaign group.

The group's Workplace Equality Index is a national benchmarking exercise which ranks participating employers according to 20 criteria of relevance to lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees.

These include having:

* a diversity lead person for LGB issues at board level;

* an official LGB employee network involved in discussions on employment issues within the organisation;

* automatic survivor pension entitlement for same-sex partners; and

* monitoring of staff sexual orientation.

Staffordshire chief constable John Giffard welcomed his force's top ranking, saying: "Being a better employer for gay people helps us deliver a better service across the whole area we police."

And the force's hate crime officer, PC Darren Oakey, said: "Many people, gay and straight, still don't acknowledge that gay people work in the police service, but they do. They're at the front line tackling serious crime, just like anyone else."

Stonewall lists the 100 organisations which come top of the rankings. In second place comes the IBM electronics giant, followed by the Department for Work and Pensions and Manchester City Council in joint third place.

"Employers who overlook how they appeal to gay staff don't only miss out on a significant pool of potential recruits but, in many cases, they miss our on a significant customer base too," said Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill.

Workplace equality index 2006: the top 100 employers for gay people in Britain can be downloaded from www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/wei_booklet_2006_1.pdf