Memorandum submitted by the Commission
for Racial Equality
CONTEXT OF
THIS SUBMISSION
The CRE was set up by the Race Relations Act
1976 (the Act), under which it has statutory duties to work towards
the elimination of unlawful racial discrimination and the promotion
of equality of opportunity and good relations between people from
different racial groups. In addition, it has a duty to report
to the Home Secretary on the operation of the Act, and has made
a number of recommendations for changes over the years, including
its third review of the Act, Reform of the Race Relations Act
1976 published in 1998.
The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which
introduced the positive duty on the public sector, was a response
to those recommendations and an important step towards tackling
the institutional racism highlighted by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.
This inquiry by the Work and Pensions Committee
is focusing on the standards of service delivery to people from
black and ethnic minority communities as well as looking at the
systems in place within DWP to ensure equal treatment and the
elimination of discrimination. The issues which are likely to
be included in this inquiry (such as standards of service, ethnic
make make-up of customers and staff, information needs, employment)
are highly relevant to the legislative requirements placed upon
public authorities by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.
Therefore whatever the extent of discrimination or disparities
in quality of service that have existed in the past, there is
now a legislative framework in place that DWP should be in compliance
with in order to effectively tackle inequality and discriminatory
practice.
In this submission we therefore aim to highlight
the relevant links and attempt to give our impression of the current
position in DWP in meeting its new duties under the amended Race
Relations Act. We would expect DWP's Race Equality Scheme to address
all the issues that were highlighted in the Committee's press
release announcing this inquiry. However in our view the RES (and
associate business schemes) do not adequately or consistently
set out arrangements for addressing all relevant issues.
Although there are many examples of good practice
within DWP (past and present) the CRE believes that the Department
has some way to go in effectively mainstreaming race equality
and achieving real change. The RES does not reflect some of the
positive work that has taken place and are not very forward-thinking
in terms of establishing longer term goals and outcomes; the RES
is very much a snap-shot of what is happening (or not happening)
now and does not go on to outline how the new duties under the
amended Act will contribute to service improvement for black and
ethnic minority customers.
INTRODUCTION
1. For clarity it is important to set out
what legal requirements are currently placed upon public authorities
(including DWP) as briefly described above.
2. The Race Relations Act 1976, as amended
by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (referred to as the
amended RRA) places a statutory general duty on public authorities
to work towards eliminating unlawful racial discrimination, and
to promote race equality and good race relations. Approximately
43,000 public bodies, including government departments and Ministers
of the Crown, are subject to this "general duty" which
aims to make race equality a central part of the way public bodies
work, by building race equality considerations into all aspects
of their public services, including regulation and enforcement.
3. Key bodies delivering major public services
(eg government departments, local authorities, health trusts,
the police and education institutions) are also subject to "specific
duties" in the areas of policy-making, service delivery and
employment which aim to improve the performance of the general
duty.
4. These duties required public authorities
as listed in Schedule 1A to the Act (Order No 3458) to publish
a Race Equality Scheme by 31 May 2002 which should:
— list all functions and policies that
are relevant to the duty to promote race equality, and
— set out their arrangements for:
— monitoring policies for any adverse
impact on promoting race equality;
— assessing and consulting the
likely impact of proposed policies on promoting race equality;
— publishing results of their monitoring,
assessments and consultation;
— ensuring the public have access
to information and services; and
— training staff on the general
and specific duties
— for employment, authorities must
monitor, by racial group, staff in post and applicants for jobs,
promotion and training. If they have over 150 staff they must
also monitor grievances, disciplinary action, performance appraisal,
those receiving training and ceasing employment.
Education institutions are subject to a similar
but lesser set of specific duties and were required to produce
a Race Equality Policy by 31 May 2002. (The specific duties for
education institutions are not detailed here as they are not relevant
to this inquiry.)
(To clarify, we refer to the general duty and
specific duties as the "public duty")
5. The Department for Work and Pensions
(DWP), as a government department are subject to the duties as
detailed above and were required to publish a Race Equality Scheme
(RES) by 31 May last year. DWP published a consultation version
of a RES by the required deadline; the consultation period ended
on 30 September 2002. The approach DWP took in responding to the
this requirement was to publish an overarching scheme, backed
up with nine associate schemes for each of the key business areas
of the department.
The CRE provided written comments on the consultation
versions of these schemes, although outside the formal consultation
period, and have since met with and provided on-going advice to
the corporate Race Equality Team and other teams within the various
directorates, during the rewriting and production of a final RES.
DWP has yet to publish its final RES; it was due to be published
by 31 May 2003 but recent reports indicate it will not be published
until July this year.
SPECIFIC ISSUES
FOR THE
INQUIRY
Standards of Service Towards Claimants from Black
and Ethnic Minority Communities
6. In 1992/3 the CRE conducted a joint pilot
study with the then Benefits Agency (BA) to look at the standards
of service for ethnic minority customers in the delivery of Income
Support in two local offices. The study noted less favourable
treatment of Asian claimants at these offices, the main findings
of which include:
— It took significantly longer to process
a proportion of claims made by Asians than it did to process others.
— The cases taking longest to process
were those in the Sickness Benefit channel, in which Asians were
over-represented, these taking twice as long as non-Asians to
be processed.
— Asian customers were more likely
to be asked for further evidence to support their claim, even
though non-Asians were more likely to have provided insufficient
details on their claim form.
— Asian customers were more likely
to be asked about other income or their own home, even when they
did not have these.
— Non-Asians declaring their special
circumstance as "sick" were more likely to be queried
about this than were Asians.
— Asian customers were more likely
to have had correspondence from the Agency than non-Asians, particularly
relating to the number of children being claimed for and other
benefits claimed.
— Although in all cases there was little
involvement with Fraud section, it was more likely to occur with
Asian customers.
7. The report, published in 1993, recommended
that:
— Further research should be undertaken
to explore the reasons for the differences; and
— The BA should introduce ethnic monitoring
of benefit claims.
Although the Benefits Agency accepted the conclusions
of the report it was claimed that they were unable to take forward
either of the recommendations due to funding constraints.
8. Based on anecdotal evidence received
by the CRE in recent years, these same findings could just as
easily be made if the study was repeated today. Ethnic minority
customers are still more likely to experience delays in claims
being processed with evidence requirements being more rigorously
pursued.
9. Following on from this the Benefits Agency
(BA) published Service Delivery to customers from Ethnic Minorities:
a guide to good practice in 1996 which included guidance on
interpreting and translation, cultural awareness, ethnic naming
systems and local liaison contacts and useful organisations. This
guidance also made reference to relevant standards or codes of
practice that existed at the time, such as the Equal Opportunities
Monitoring Guide, the BA Code of Practice for Equality and the
BA Customer Charter. The CRE understands that this guidance was
"in use" until approximately January 2002 after which
an updated (and possibly truncated) version of the guidance was
produced. Having had sight of the original version, this guidance
certainly appeared to be a useful resource for staff.
10. What is very interesting however is
that no reference is made to the guidance (or related policies,
codes of practice, etc) in any of the DWP Race Equality Schemes
(including associate schemes) currently in circulation that the
CRE has had access to. This therefore begs the question of how
this guidance was distributed and what systems were put in place
to ensure it was implemented. If effective use had been made of
this resource since 1996 the standards of service for black and
ethnic minority claimants could have been much higher than may
be evident today.
ETHNIC MAKE-UP
OF CUSTOMERS
AND STAFF
11. At present DWP holds very little data
on the ethnicity of its customers (especially claimants, if we
take customers to include all those that receive some sort of
service from DWP). This is evidenced and reported within the current
versions of the Department's Race Equality Scheme(s) in which
most directorates/business areas report that there are no systems
to allow ethnicity data to be collected (and analysed) currently.
Jobcentre Plus appears to be the only directorate where ethnic
monitoring takes place in a systematic way, but not across all
benefit delivery programmes. Ethnic monitoring only seems to exist
for New Deal for Young People claimants although some statistical
data is available from Labour Force Surveys.
12. This means that for the vast majority
of its customer base (those for example using the services of
the disability and carers directorate, the Child Support Agency,
the Pensions Service, the Appeals Service, etc) DWP has no reliable
data on ethnicity.
13. In practical terms, in relation to the
requirements of the amended Race Relations Act 1976, DWP will
have difficulty in meeting some of the specific duties. If any
organisations do not know the ethnicity of its customers, how
will it be able to identify and measure any adverse impact its
policies are having on people from different racial groups; how
will it know who to consult with; how can it ensure equitable
access to its services for all racial groups and ensure information
is provided in an appropriate and accessible format?
14. DWP have a better track record in ethnic
monitoring of its staff and the Human Resources Directorate RES
details basic level information on the current ethnic make-up
of employees by grade from Executive Officer level to Senior Civil
Servant. The data presented however does not breakdown the data
by ethnic origin and therefore little judgement or analysis can
take place by the CRE or other stakeholders/interested parties
based on the information presented in its RES.
THE INFORMATION
NEEDS OF
ETHNIC MINORITY
CLAIMANTS
15. As detailed above (paragraph 4) listed
public authorities are required under the duties to set out their
arrangements for ensuring public access to information and services.
These arrangements should be set out in DWP's RES (and relevant
associate schemes) and ideally should identify where gaps exist
and what will be done to address these gaps, specifying timescales.
16. The degree to which this particular
duty is addressed in the various DWP schemes is variable and in
some instances likely to be judged as non-compliant. There is
a sense that DWP make assumptions regarding the information needs
of customers without consulting or considering any specific needs
of customers. The basic approach outlined in the majority of the
schemes is that key documents (mainly information leaflets) are
translated in to the eight main minority languages. Some state
that information is provided on audio tape.
17. However, the information needs of ethnic
minority customers goes much wider than that, and if barriers
such as form-filling problems, disproportionate evidence requirements,
literacy levels, are not recognised and tackled then the information
needs of ethnic minority customers will never be met, which could
impact on a person's claim for, or entitlement to benefit.
18. To effectively meet the statutory duty
to ensure access to information DWP need to consider more comprehensively
the information needs of customers from different racial groups
which would include letter writing procedures, claim notifications
and requests for further information, signage in offices, complaints
processes and appeal procedures, etc.
SYSTEMS FOR
OBTAINING FEEDBACK
FROM BLACK
AND ETHNIC
MINORITY CUSTOMERS
19. DWP have various mechanisms for obtaining
feedback from customers but the degree to which these existing
systems are appropriate, culturally sensitive or accessible to
black and ethnic minority customers is questionable. A combination
of national and local level fora, customer surveys, formal paper/web-based
consultations and focus groups are quoted as being the mechanisms
by which DWP consult customers. These are examples extracted from
the various Race Equality Schemes in relation to the duty to assess
and consult on the likely impact of proposed policies on promoting
race equality. The arrangements however that have been set out
in the majority of the associate schemes are weak and demonstrate
that these plans have been poorly thought out perhaps, or there
is a lack of experience or knowledge as to how to conduct effective
and meaningful consultation.
20. DWP has recently set up an Ethnic Minority
Working Party, emerging from the existing national Ethnic Minority
Forum. The role of this working party is to add to existing mechanisms
of obtaining feedback from organisations representing the interests
of black and ethnic minority customers, with a particular focus
on how the Department will meet the requirements of the amended
Act. The CRE was represented a the first meeting held in April
2003, and therefore at this early stage is not able to comment
on how effective this new group will be.
21. The CRE is also unable to comment on
the effectiveness of the other mechanisms (as detailed above)
that DWP relies upon to seek feedback from customers. Without
having seen, for example, the content of customer surveys, we
are unable to make a judgement or provide evidence as to the effectiveness
or relevance to race equality.
22. We are however aware of anecdotal evidence,
from attendance at various DWP working groups or stakeholder meetings
that there is little confidence amongst customers, and their representative
organisations in the consultation process. Customers receive little
feedback or reassurance that their concerns or issues raised are
taken seriously and acted upon. There is clearly room for improvement
in respect of DWP actively engaging customers in this process.
COMPLAINTS OF
UNFAIR TREATMENT
23. There is little evidence, at least reported
in the Race Equality Schemes, of rigorous procedures for ensuring
complaints of discrimination, unfair treatment, harassment or
complaints on other racial grounds will be dealt with seriously
and fairly. A small number of the directorates do make the commitment
to start monitoring complaints by ethnicity. The CRE would recommend
that this commitment be made corporately.
ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
OF RELEVANCE
TO THE
INQUIRY
Applications for Assistance from the CRE for claims
of race discrimination against DWP
The table below sets out the number of applications
for assistance that have been received by the CRE during the period
2000-03. These figures represent applications from individuals
wishing to pursue a claim of race discrimination under section
66 Race Relations Act 1976. The data differentiates between employment
cases and non-employment, ie those relating to service delivery
issues. This table does not go on to indicate the outcome of these
cases; this information may be available in some cases on further
investigation.
| Type of Case Employment
Service
| CRE region | Ethnic origin
|
| 2002 | 5 | 7
| 8 East Midlands
4 London & South
| 8 Black African
1 Mixed race
2 Indian
|
| 2001 | 5 | 2
| 6 London & South
1 North East
| 4 Black African
1 Chinese
2 Indian
|
| 2000 | 2 | 4
| 3 London & South
2 North
1 Midlands
1 Scotland
| 1 Black other
1 Black Caribbean
1 Jewish
2 other
|
| 1 out of scope
| | 1 unspecified |
Mr Seamus Taylor
Director of Strategy Delivery
19 May 2003
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