The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

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The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute, (2019), ‘Global Entrepreneurship Index’. Available at: https://thegedi.org/global-entrepreneurship-and-development-index/ ↩ The case studies highlighted in this chapter have been identified by the Commission, during its evidence gathering phase, as positive examples of what works and are used for illustrative purposes only in the context in which they arise. The Commission fully recognises that there will be many other examples of similar good practice in the respective fields and industries, so wishes to make clear that in highlighting them they are not particularly endorsed or being given preferential treatment. Employment and unemployment One example of increasing representation through the use of nudge measures such as mentoring is Liverpool City Council’s initiative ‘Step Forward - Step Up’. The programme, due to be launched in September 2021, will be delivered by a consortium of key city employers led by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. Through a series of development modules (such as leadership development programme, mentoring and action learning sets), it will seek to develop and create a diverse talent pipeline in Liverpool. Participating employers support the programme by sponsoring participants’ fees, promoting career opportunities, contributing to modules, providing mentoring and committing to embedding diversity at all levels, among other things. This programme was developed in partnership with the successful model created by Bristol City Council’s ‘Stepping Up’ initiative, [footnote 67] a locally driven public-private collaboration to advance representation.

The pay gap, meaning the difference between the median hourly earnings of all ethnic minority (not including White minority) groups and White groups, is at its lowest level since 2012 at 2.3%. Employees from the White Irish, Indian and Chinese ethnic groups on average have higher hourly earnings than the White British ethnic group. [footnote 3] Dobbin, F., and Kalev, A., (2016), ‘Why Diversity Programs Fail And what works better’, Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail ↩ While these application tests show discrimination against names that are recognised as not being traditionally British, it is unclear if this effect is about race, class or perceived foreign culture. More granular studies should be conducted which manipulate first names as well as surnames, class as well as ethnicity, and which include greater and lesser levels of CV qualifications, as all have been found to affect the results. [footnote 54] They should also attempt to assess the ethnic makeup of those making hiring decisions, or at least the ethnic composition of the hiring organisation or unit, to test for variations in bias among assessors. the difference in the employment rate between white people and people from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) was biggest among 16 to 24 year olds – 55% of white people and 35% of people from ethnic minorities were employed

Everyday racism at work

Clinical Excellence Award (CEA): Locally a BME consultant makes 24.5% less than a White consultant, compared with national awards which is only 5.4% less. Despite the wider, societal challenges, great strides have been made in employers’ attitudes to health at work. Dame Carol commended organisations for the level of attention they are now giving to mental health conditions at work, in particular. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number, so some totals may not add up to 100%. Not included in the data among 25 to 49 year olds, the employment rate was highest in the ‘white other’ ethnic group (88%), and lowest in the combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi group (66%)

In 2018, the NHS became one of the first public sector organisations to publish breakdowns of pay for all staff by ethnic group, but the picture presented by the overall NHS data is complicated. Data is shown separately for the white British and white Irish groups and all other white groups are combined(‘white other’ ethnic group). Separate figures are also shown for 3 different Asian ethnic groups (Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi combined, and Asian other).According to the Race in the workplace: The McGregor-Smith review, when subjected to CV testing private sector employers showed a discrimination rate of 35% compared with 4% for the public sector. ↩ Second, bias can enter the system in various ways. First, through data – for example, if a loan decision system receives data for a particular ethnic group that only contains default borrowers, the system may learn to use ethnicity data to unfairly deny loans to that group. Second, through the model; for example, unfair rules may be unknowingly hardcoded into the system (in practice, this is less common). Last, through decisions; for example, a system may give a fair output which humans may be more confident about than is deserved.

The NHS is a success story with significant over-representation of ethnic minorities in high status professional roles, but also a less happy story, with a consistently negative experience reported by many of its ethnic minority staff at lower levels.I really hope it gets resolved today because it’s the weekend, and I do have plans this evening and tomorrow,” he added. However, this is an example of the kind of work that could be done by Trusts or the NHS as a whole to consider the causes of any career progression gap between different groups of employees: Ethnicity facts and figures, (2020), ‘Employment by occupation’. Available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/employment/employment-by-occupation/latest#by-ethnicity-and-type-of-occupation ↩ British Business Bank, (2020), ‘Alone together: Entrepreneurship and diversity in the UK’. Available at: https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/research-alone-together/ ↩