Race Disparity Audit: Government, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Office for National Statistics responses to the Committee’s Third Report of Session

Appendix 2: Response from the Equality and Human Rights Commission

I’m pleased to respond on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to the report of the Women and Equalities Select Committee on the Race Disparity Audit.

The Commission welcomes the Committee’s report and recommendations, in particular its call for a cross-government race equality strategy, given the inter­ relationship between many of the race disparities highlighted in the Audit. We also welcome the Committee’s recommendation to formalise the role of the

Cabinet Office and the inter-ministerial group in enforcement, co-ordination and oversight of Government departmental plans. We agree with the Committee’s identification of educational attainment, employment outcomes and housing status as areas where the Government should prioritise actions and we will continue to engage with the Race Disparity Unit on how we can support the development of initiatives which will have impact in these areas.

The Committee made one recommendation to the Commission:

The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Office for National Statistics should work together to provide updated guidance for public bodies, service providers and employers on how to collect consistent ethnicity data and how public sector bodies should use that data to assess their compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty. (Paragraph 26).”

We welcome this recommendation. We consider that consistency in ethnic classification and monitoring is important to allow comparisons between information from different sources and comparisons over time. ONS is focussed on identifying the classifications to be applied in the compilation of official statistics and we are working closely with the ONS on this task through, for example, membership of the Ethnic Group Assurance Panel,the Census Advisory Group and the National Statistics Harmonisation Group. We will continue to build on our long and constructive relationship with ONS through engagement with their new Inequalities Centre of Expertise.

Once the ONS has, with the Commission1s input, established the appropriate approach to ethnic classification and monitoring,we see our role as disseminating this to public bodies, employers and service providers in order to promote good practice in the collection and use of ethnic monitoring information, so that they can identify and address disparities. With this in mind, we will explore how best to disseminate the ONS’ conclusions both to public bodies seeking to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty and to private and voluntary sector employers and service providers.

We will keep the Committee informed of the progress of this work.

Yours sincerely,

Melanie Field

Executive Director - Corporate Strategy and Policy and Wales





Published: 11 September 2018