Annex 1
ACHIEVING DIVERSITY IN FILM— BSAC REPORT
JANUARY 2001
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. This report was developed by the British
Screen Advisory Council Committee for Ethnic Minority Employment
in Film. The Committee was set up at the request of Chris Smith,
Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport
in May 2000 to develop proposals for ensuring increased levels
of employment for ethnic minorities in the UK film industry.
2. The Committee supports cross-industry
initiatives and the sharing of expertise, resources and models
of good practice to ensure that film responds to changing demographics
in its production and employment practices. Due to the fragmented
and casualised structure of the film sector, whose leading players
are the UK subsidiaries of the US majors and the film divisions
of the British broadcasters, there are significant problems for
all entrants to the industry regardless of their ethnicity, gender
or social class.
3. The Committee, however, recognises that
potential employees from ethnic minority backgrounds are likely
to experience even greater problems because of what they perceive
as the "closed" nature of the film industry and the
existing networks of power, which are seen to be composed of "insiders"
who are predominantly white and male.
4. The principal concern of the Committee
is to encourage ethnic minority employment in the mainstream rather
than in the margins of the industry, in both the commercial and
the public film sectors.
5. The key recommendation is a five-year
programme designed to achieve a target of employment of ethnic
minorities in the film industry, in line with the published figures
for the ethnic minority population within the area where production
and business units are based. The goal is that diversity of employment
in film should represent the diversity in the population as a
whole.
6. To achieve this target, the Film Council
should establish a cross-industry Ethnic Minority Employment Action
Group with responsibility for delivering the five-year programme.
This Group should include the public and the commercial film sectors,
representatives from the US majors, broadcasters with film production
and distribution divisions, trade associations, trade unions and
guilds, the large independent film companies and the National
Training Organisation (Skillset). The Group will report annually
to the Department for Culture Media and Sport.
7. Action Points for the first year are
to:
— sensitise the industry;
— implement monitoring systems;
— develop training programmes;
— create an online employment database;
— develop a voluntary code; and
8. Monitoring of the five-year programme
is vital to ensure that real change takes place in the film industry.
In this respect the Committee recommends that the Film Council
Ethnic Minority Employment Action Group should report annually
to the Secretary of State. The Department for Culture, Media and
Sport should take the lead in monitoring the progress towards
achieving the targets and actions proposed in this report so that
racial diversity, on and behind the screen, reflects today's multicultural
Britain.
9. The Committee invites a wide degree of
consultation and feedback from interested parties within the film
industry and it is hoped that leading producers and film companies
will come forward with proposals for what they can support in
terms of a voluntary code.
Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, Media
and Sport placed the issue of ethnic minority employment in film
on the agenda in June 1999. An action plan is still awaited.
1 May 2003
| 
