Highlights
- The Department will have difficulty meeting its duties under race relations legislation if it does not know the ethnicity of its customers or its staff. It will be unable to identify and measure any adverse impact of its policies on people from different ethnic groups and ensure equitable access to its services. We recommend that the Department takes urgent action to implement ethnic monitoring across the Department and its Agencies for all benefits and services.
- Once the extent of the use of DWP services by ethnic minorities is known it will be vital to assess the impact of DWP's policies. In particular the Department should publish the statutory three year review of the Race Equality Scheme and the race impact assessment of the job cuts and relocations out of London and the South East. In the context of the current requirement to achieve efficiency savings, the Department should make publicly available the criteria used for selecting staff who will lose their posts and the ethnic breakdown of the staff who will be leaving the Department as a result of the job cuts. We also recommend that the Department gives serious consideration to the effect on staff ethnicity when deciding which staff will be selected for redundancy, particularly in London where 48% of the staff in the administrative grade and 37% of those in the executive officer grade is from an ethnic minority - five times the average across the whole Department.
- The assessment of the impact of specific DWP policies on ethnic minority clients will be assisted by the use of the Impact Assessment Tool and we recommend that it is urgently applied across the Department to all areas of service delivery as well as existing and new policies. The results of the impact assessment should be published and acted upon speedily to reduce inequalities for clients and staff in order to comply with the race relations legislation.
- The ability to communicate effectively is vital, particularly when dealing with ethnic minority clients. The Committee recommends that a larger range of translated information material should be made more widely available, updated frequently and put on public display. The Committee recommends that the Department amends and enhances the current staff language allowance to differentiate between staff who often use their linguistic skills and those who are 'casual' users.
- Training is crucial in overcoming cultural barriers and enhancing the race awareness of DWP staff. The Committee recommends that the Department undertakes a full assessment of race equality and cultural awareness training and ensures that staff receive up-to-date race equality training, with 'refresher' courses held for all staff on a regular basis. Training via printed and electronic media should not be used as a substitute for attendance at a training event. All staff training should be tested and evaluated to ensure that it meets the needs of staff and clients.
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