May’s racial audit reveals gap between Asians and whites

ASIAN and ethnic minority households are more likely to be poor and in “persistent poverty”, a government racial audit has revealed.

Women from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds are the least likely to be employed, although the proportion of women from the communities in employment has increased since 2004, according to the audit.

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Commissioned by prime minister Theresa May last year, the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website launched on Tuesday (10).

Reacting to the findings, the prime minister said institutions must “explain or change”. “Britain has come a long way in my lifetime in spreading equality and opportunity. But the data we are publishing today will provide the definitive evidence of how far we must still go in order to truly build a country that works for everyone,” May said.

“People who have lived with discrimination don’t need a government audit to make them aware of the scale of the challenge. This audit means that for society as a whole – for government, for our public services – there is nowhere to hide.”

The website is a new government audit of public services showing data about disparities within employment, health, educational attainment and housing.

It will be a permanent fixture and new data will be updated accordingly. It is the first time a country has ever published a report on how people of different ethnicities are treated in various public services.

Data also showed that pupils from Indian and Chinese backgrounds had “high attainment and progress” throughout their school career, as well as securing higher rates of entry to university.

Additional findings showed more than half of all adults in all ethnic groups, excluding Chinese, were overweight.

Within health, most Asian groups also expressed lower levels of satisfaction and less positive experiences while dealing with the National Health Service (NHS) more than other ethnic groups.

The survey also revealed that a significant majority of adults in the white, Asian, black and mixed ethnic groups felt “a sense of belonging to Britain”.

Following the report’s findings, May has pledged to set out targeted action in 20 “hotspot” areas where there are large gaps in employment, including expanding mentoring programmes to help people into work, traineeship programmes to help young people find work and vocational training alongside work placements.

The audit found that ethnic minority households are significantly less likely to rent privately than white British households. Households of Pakistani individuals tended to be of a lower quality; overcrowding was also more common, especially within Bangladeshi housing.

Within the public-sector workforce, the report stated ethnic minority employees are “concentrated in the lower ranks”. In the NHS, only seven per cent of very senior managers and 11 per cent of senior managers were from an ethnic minority group, while 93 per cent of NHS boards members in England are white.

London mayor Sadiq Khan told Eastern Eye on Tuesday that the audit “should be a wakeup call for us to take action”. “Some people suffer multiple discrimination – we’ve got to look at the class issue. I’m going to make sure that I give it the sense of urgency it deserves,” he said.

Labour MP David Lammy, whose recent report reviewing the treatment of BAME individuals in the criminal justice system was published in September, said, “We should not allow the racial disparity audit to bring forth more talking shops”. “We’ve had a lot of talk, it’s now time for action,” he said.

Within the criminal justice area, the audit said whilst the average custodial sentence length for white offenders was 18 months, the average for Asian and black offenders was at 25 and 24 months respectively.

The Lammy Review stated that despite making up just 14 per cent of the population, those from a BAME ethnic background make up 25 per cent of prisoners, while more than 40 per cent of BAME young people are in custody.

Liberal Democrats leader Vince Cable said the audit shows racial prejudice continues to affect people’s life chances and that it is “utterly unacceptable” in modern day Britain. “It is not right that our BAME friends and neighbours are far less likely to have a job or own their home – it is an unfairness that should have ended long ago,” Sir Vince said. “[These challenges] will only be overcome if we all work together.”

Director of British Future, an integration and identity UK-based thinktank, Sunder Katwala, praised the race audit for seeing that Britain goes “considerably further than any other major democracy” in understanding how race and ethnicity have an impact on people’s lives.

However, he called the findings “stark and troubling” and acknowledged that a “clear and urgent plan for change” is required.

“Uncovering these facts is a necessary step to address them. The audit offers an opportunity to do what is long overdue; linking questions of ethnicity, faith, class and identity in a coherent debate about common citizenship, equal opportunities and shared British identity,” Katwala said.

“It also sets out the scale of the challenge. The test for politicians who talk about One Nation is to show that they mean it, on every front.”

Policy analyist Kathleen Henehan, from the Resolution Foundation, which published a report last Saturday (7) showing that BAME graduates have lower employment rates than white graduates, said the audit provides an important evidence base from which to tackle disparities.

“BAME families are disproportionately represented in poorer households, despite experiencing relatively strong income growth over recent decades,” Henehan said. “And despite astounding progress in terms of getting degrees, BAME graduates still face a jobs gap and pay penalty when they enter the workforce.”

She added: “Tackling these labour market disadvantages will hold the key to boosting the living standards of millions of black, Asian and ethnic minority families.”

May was criticised by some for not sharing the audit in parliament sooner. Labour MP Dawn Butler, the shadow secretary for women and equalities, said: “If the prime minister really feels so strongly about this issue, why did she sit on this report and refuse to share it with parliament – despite Labour asking her to publish it three months ago? This government’s report is not enough. What we need are solutions and a sustained effort to really tackle burning injustices”.

Butler said the prime minister had done “nothing but [exacerbate] the problem”.

“Far from tackling the burning injustices she’s added fuel to the fire. We need solutions and a sustained effort to really tackle burning injustices, talking shop is just not going to cut it.”

Other key findings from the report showed that Asian individuals who tended to have trust in the police is as high as that of white British people, while those from a black Caribbean background remain more cynical.

Of the 41.9 per cent of those who visited the “natural environment” in the last week, Asian people were found to be the least likely to visit, it was revealed; white people were more likely to do so.

Data also showed that black Caribbean pupils (a rate of 0.29 per cent) were excluded from schooling institutions at three times the rate of White British pupils (0.1 per cent).