{"id":1729,"date":"2022-04-28T11:07:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T11:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2022-04-28T11:07:33","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T11:07:33","slug":"positive-action-across-the-city-is-a-must","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/?p=1729","title":{"rendered":"Positive Action across the City is a must"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Extracts from the book\nDear Birmingham (2013) by Dr Karamat Iqbal <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn 1986, Birmingham City Council, a major\nWest Midlands employer, with 50,000 full and part-time workers, decided as part\nof its positive action programme, that its aim would be to recruit 20% of new\nstaff from ethnic minority communities\u201d (Employment Report, Commission for Racial\nEquality, 1987). In launching the programme Councillor Bill Gray said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cWhat we are saying is that from now on, regardless of\nother considerations, 20 per cent of recruiting must come from ethnic\nminorities. We are going to monitor recruitment and managers will have to\nexplain if they have not recruited 20 per cent. It is no good just talking of\nbeing committed to an equal opportunities process- we have to demonstrate that\nwe mean what we say.\u201d&nbsp; <\/em>Bill\nGray<em>&nbsp;\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, in 2001,\nthe Birmingham Stephen Lawrence Commission Report said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cThe institutions should take steps to ensure that\nthey address the current under-representation of minority ethnic people in\ntheir employment. All institutions should establish workforce targets based on\nthe current minority ethnic population of the city\u2026You can performance manage\nso many things, why can\u2019t you performance manage race?\u201d <\/em>Lawrence\nCommission<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cIf public services are to be effective in responding\nto more diverse needs, then a pre-requisite is to ensure that their workforce\nprofiles are truly reflective of (the) diversity.\u201d <\/em>Lawrence\nCommission<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Others have agreed with the approach: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cReflective\nworkforces are seen as effective workforces and if you are going to provide\nculturally competent and sensitive services then you need staff who can connect\nwith the communities that they serve\u201d<\/em>&#8211; BRAP<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John\nSolomos and Les Back, in their book about the City (Race, Politics and Social\nChange, 1995), pointed out that Birmingham has been very successful with regard\nto writing policies and presenting an image of itself as an authority that is\nin the forefront of developing race equality policies. However, it has not been\nas good at making sure that race equality initiatives are embraced at all\nlevels within the organisation. The authors quote a Black officer saying: \u201cWe\nhave created a fa\u00e7ade that race relations have been strengthened. We go all\naround Europe, host conferences blowing Birmingham\u2019s trumpet but the reality of\nthe situation is very different\u2026\u201d (p191).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, it would appear that it is not all\nwindow-dressing. There is much good practice from the past that we can learn\nfrom. I thought this Birmingham political leader, quoted in Solomos and Back,\nsummed up my thinking on positive action: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201c..If you have a history of under-representation\nyou\u2019ve got to do something at some point to catch up, but I am against the\ndropping of standards. I think what you\u2019ve got to do is remove any other and\nillegitimate obstacles, personal racism of a superior within a department or\nsomething of that sort, overt discrimination. Remove that so that people can\ncompete fairly. What I wouldn\u2019t do is remove competition.\u201d&nbsp; <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cIt is very well making policy pronouncements, but you\nhave to take it much further than this. It is just not enough to have fine\npieces of paper\u2026 In employment, for example, you need to take a whole view\u2026. If\nyou recruit ten black people and ten years later they are in the same position,\nthat\u2019s not equality\u201d <\/em>Black Officer<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a policy response, we could do worse\nthan refer to the 1984 manifesto commitment of Birmingham Labour Party. As\npointed out in Solomos and Back, it committed the incoming administration to\nseek to achieve \u201cproportionate employment of ethnic minorities.. at all\nlevels.&#8221; It committed the Council to take Positive Action to ensure that\nthere is equality of opportunity for ethnic minorities in all its initiatives.\nAs a result, the City Council successfully pursued a target of twenty per cent\nethnic minority employees, under the leadership of Bill Gray who is quoted\nabove. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;Following this, there was writing of equal\nopportunities criteria into the performance contracts of senior managers. The\nChief Officers of service departments made regular reports to the Personnel and\nEqual opportunities Committee (though this resulted in some \u201cembarrassed and heated exchanges with members, it worked\u201d). The\n\u201csituation had been transformed radically.\u201d By 1993, the\nethnic minority presence in the City\u2019s workforce had reached 15.4%, with a\n\u201cnumber of departments approaching the target 20 per cent minority employment\nand some have completely transformed their ethnic composition.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>City-wide programme<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>The earlier rules about Positive Action \u2013 in place since the Sex\nDiscrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976 \u2013 have now been\nchanged. In the past, it was limited to training or encouragement such as\nmentoring schemes for ethnic minority or women staff where they were\nunder-represented at certain levels within an organisation or needed additional\ntraining provision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the recent Equality Act 2010, it is now legal to recruit or\npromote a candidate (say a Pakistani) who is of equal merit to another\ncandidate. However, before this can be done the employer has to reasonably think that Pakistanis are under-represented in the\nworkforce and they suffer from a disadvantage due to being a Pakistani. For example, a service for\nteenagers has no employees who are Pakistani, despite being located in an area\nof high Pakistani population. When a vacancy arises, there are two candidates\nwho are equally qualified for the job and the employer has to find a way to\nchoose one of them. One candidate is Pakistani and the other candidate is not.\nUnder the current law, it would be legal to offer the job to the Pakistani and\nthe other candidate would not be able to make a claim of unlawful racial\ndiscrimination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my view, the new Positive Action rules offer us as a city a way\nforward. However, I would not suggest that a few organisations take such an\napproach in isolation from each other. Thinking of our city as one big business, Birmingham Plc, which is faced with\nacross-the-board under-representation of ethnic minorities (more of some than\nothers) I would like to propose a wholesale programme of Positive Action,\nproperly resourced and co-ordinated and with one clear focus: to improve the\nsituation in employment and service provision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Extracts from the book Dear Birmingham (2013) by Dr Karamat Iqbal \u201cIn 1986, Birmingham City Council, a major West Midlands employer, with 50,000 full and part-time workers, decided as part of its positive action programme, that its aim would be to recruit 20% of new staff from ethnic minority communities\u201d (Employment Report, Commission for Racial &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/?p=1729\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Positive Action across the City is a must&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1730,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/1730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forwardpartnership.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}