Examination of witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 11 JULY 2000
SIR DAVID
OMAND, KCB, MR
ROBERT FULTON
and MR STEPHEN
BOYS SMITH
40. Why should an institution in this country
have to demonstrate that at all, for goodness sake?
(Sir David Omand) If I may finish my answer, what
we have to demonstrate is that we have in place practices and
procedures which match up to the long-standing Civil Service code,
which do ensure that we are treating our staff fairly, which do
ensure that we are continuing to recruit and promote on merit
and that provide for the citizen, or the customer, the quality
of services that the citizens are entitled to. When we have demonstrated—as
I believe we are in the process of doing in the Home Office—that
we are meeting those tests, then I will be confident in standing
up and saying "That is a label I reject. I do not believe
it any longer fits". However, I have not been confident in
standing up and saying that, because there is too much evidence
that in the past we have not looked after our staff from ethnic
minority backgrounds in the way in which they deserve to be looked
after. For as long as I am the Permanent Secretary at the Home
Office we will continue to campaign to make sure that we can hold
up our heads and say "We are not institutionally racist".
41. So in what specific way do you think the
Home Office is institutionally racist?
(Sir David Omand) To go back, very briefly, over the
points I have been mentioning about the processes by which we
have recruited, processes by which we have selected for advancement,
our promotion arrangements and some of our disciplinary procedures—all
of those have had to be re-tested to ensure that we are genuinely
being fair. We have made changes to those in the light of what
we believe is necessary to run a department that, as I say, really
meets the standards that should be expected.
Mr Winnick
42. Quite clearly, the three most senior Civil
Servants in the Home Office are not from the ethnic minority group.
On the position of senior Home Office management people, Grade
5 and above, the number from the ethnic minority in the Home Office
is just 1 per cent, is it not?
(Sir David Omand) If you exclude specialist staff
in the Prison Service, where the percentage would rise a little
if you were to include them. If you take administrators, then
the figure is very low, and that is true across the Civil Service.
43. It is indeed very low, and—presenting
my questions from a very different viewpoint to Mr Howarth—I
am wondering what it was a few years ago. Was it much different?
(Sir David Omand) I do not have a figure in my head.
44. Take two or three years ago.
(Sir David Omand) It would have been even lower, but
I do not have a figure.
45. So it would not be unfair to say there has
not really been much progress—certainly no substantial progress—in
the last few years when it comes to the most senior grades at
the Home Office who come from ethnic minorities?
(Sir David Omand) I would generalise that across the
Civil Service and say that I think we have all been disappointed
at the rate of progress. That is why we selected diversity as
one of our key themes for the Civil Service modernisation programme
we launched at the end of last year.
46. The Cabinet Office has set a target, I understand,
of just over 3 per cent representation in the Home Office of senior
staff from the ethnic minority by 2004. That is not a very ambitious
target, would you agree?
(Sir David Omand) It is when you take the very small
numbers that are currently in the service and you look at the
feeder grades from which those senior posts could be drawn, were
it to be done internally. It would be very difficult to meet that.
It will be necessary for us to open more jobs to competition and
to run competitions in a way that makes the jobs attractive to
everyone who might be qualified. That means the places where we
advertise, for example—a wider range of newspapers and journals—and
the universities we approach. All of these things have to be thought
about if we are going to meet those targets, which we are determined
to do.
47. What is the most senior job in the Home
Office Civil Service held by someone from the ethnic minority?
I do not want a name.
(Sir David Omand) Grade 5. Senior Civil Service Grade
5. What used to be known as Assistant Secretary level.
48. How many from the ethnic minority? Let me
put the same question: what is the most senior job in the Civil
Service at the Home Office held by someone from the ethnic minority?
(Sir David Omand) I would have to leave the Prison
Service to one side.
49. Leave the Prison Service. In the Home Office.
(Sir David Omand) In the Home Office itself, my ethnic
minority adviser to the board is a Senior Civil Service—
50. Trevor Hall?
(Sir David Omand) Yes.
51. So he has the most senior job in the Home
Office Civil Service who comes from an ethnic minority. Apart
from Mr Hall?
(Sir David Omand) If I may, I will not give names.
I think that is slightly invidious. We have the head of one of
our bill teams, again a Senior Civil Service Grade, who is also
from an ethnic minority background.
52. So the person you are referring to—whose
name I do not want—is the most senior person in the Civil
Service in the Home Office, apart from Mr Hall?
(Sir David Omand) Yes, that is right.
Mr Linton
53. It says 1 per cent of Grade 5 and above.
That cannot be very many people, can it? There cannot be very
many people above Grade 5 in your department, and 1 per cent of
them cannot be many either. How many is it, actually?
(Sir David Omand) I hesitate to do the sum in my head.
Perhaps I can put it in a footnote.[1]
However, the thrust of your question is right; it is a small number
of people, but the group of people from which we are promoting
is also quite a small group of people and they are predominantly
white. This is the problem we face. How long will it take before
the extremely good middle managers who are coming up from a wide
variety of backgrounds get into these senior positions? My approach
has been to try and accelerate some of the promotions of really
good—regardless of colour or ethnic minority background—people
to push them forward faster and open more jobs to open competition
in the hope we will attract, again, people from a wider variety
of background.
54. I would not expect you to keep all the figures
in your head, but I would have thought the number of people of
Grade 5 and above is a—
(Sir David Omand) Two out of 190, I am told by the
statistician on my left.[2]
55. That is very helpful. That leads me on to
the small supplementary question I had. In the information you
gave to us you said it was your aim to have an ethnic mix on recruitment
boards and promotion boards. In view of that answer, it must be
very difficult at that senior level to have any kind of ethnic
mix on promotion boards.
(Sir David Omand) We cannot manage it on every board,
but very often a board is composed of a number of panels and we
can bring people in from outside, of course. We do not have to
just have Home Office civil servants on promotion boards, we can
use outsiders—and do, indeed,—to try and make sure
there is a proper balance, and we borrow people from other departments.
So we can work on this to try and achieve the objective.
56. So ethnic minority candidates for jobs at
that very senior level can feel confident that there will be ethnic
minority people involved in the promotion process?
(Sir David Omand) Not invariably. I would hesitate
to make that an absolute rule, but we do try to give confidence
that all the board members have been properly trained—which
we do—and that we are, in choosing board members, going
widely, including having members on boards who come from outside
the Home Office.
Mr Stinchcombe
57. Just one final question on this: you seem
to suggest that the 3.2 per cent target would be quite an ambitious
target, quite a difficult one to hit, for the reasons you have
given, in respect of the Senior Civil Service posts. Am I right
in thinking that, in fact, in order to meet it you would only
have to employ just 4 more people from ethnic minorities in the
next 4 years?
(Sir David Omand) It depends on whether you are including
the Prison Service. If we take, for example, Prison Service doctors,
many of whom are from ethnic minority backgrounds, then the figures
are relatively easy to find. If we look at administrators, then
it is a more difficult target.
Mr Stinchcombe: Just on that maths, if it was
2 currently out of 190 (hence the figure of 1 per cent) in order
to get to 3.2 per cent you only have to employ 6 people—or
four more than now.
Mr Winnick
58. Do you not think there is a case for being
somewhat more ambitious?
(Sir David Omand) We debated this extensively across
the Civil Service and we ended up picking this figure. It is not
without its difficulties because we are talking about very senior
posts where, in the grades below, there are, alas, very few people
from ethnic minorities who are already in the zone for promotion.
However, that, of course, we intend, again, to increase by trying
to pull people through the system as quickly as we can.
Mr Howarth
59. Surely, you either recruit people on their
merit, for their ability to do the job, or you recruit people
to meet this target. My colleagues here are pretty unimpressed
that you are not going to meet this target, so you are anxious
to impress upon them that you are going to meet this target, but
you will not meet this target unless there are meritorious candidates
coming forward or you reduce the standard.
(Sir David Omand) No. Or we recruit from outside.
As I say, we recognise in the Senior Civil Service that that was
an inevitable consequence of setting this kind of target. You
need only look at the select group of Permanent Secretaries and
those who might be thought to be in the promotion zone to realise
that to achieve this target, throughout the senior reaches of
the Civil Service, will involve some opening up. That may be no
bad thing on its merit, but it is one of the consequences of trying
to meet these targets.
1 See Annex. Back
2
Note by witness: The Home Office currently has responsibility
for around 200 members of the senior civil service (SCS), including
those on loan to other organisations and in Home Office agencies,
but excluding those in specialist posts (largely the different
statutory inspectorates). The central 3.2 per cent target for
ethnic minority representation will be measured against this 200,
3.2 per cent is 7 posts. At the time of setting the target 1 per
cent of this group-2 SCS members-recorded themselves as belonging
to an ethnic minority. This number has now risen to 4-2 per cent. Back
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