Tackling inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities Contents

8Discrimination and Hate Crime

136.Behaviour that amounts to either direct or indirect discrimination is widespread and is unacceptable in our society. We have heard that this behaviour and the way it influences public services is one of the underlying causes of many of the inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. This chapter explores the issues around discrimination in public services and then goes on to consider hate crime against the Communities.

Discrimination by public bodies

Discrimination law as applied to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people

137.Gypsy, Roma and some Traveller people are protected against discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 in England, Wales and Scotland and under the Race Relations (NI) Order 1997 in Northern Ireland. Romany Gypsies,194 Scottish Gypsy/Travellers195 and Irish Travellers196 have all been declared by the courts to be protected as “races” under the Equality Act 2010. However, at least two Traveller groups fall outside of these definitions and may therefore not be protected against discrimination: Showpeople and New (or New Age) Travellers. Roma are also an ‘ethnic group’ in terms of the law, and therefore protected by equality legislation. In addition to the Equality Act’s prohibition of discrimination, section 149 of the Act provides that public authorities are, in the exercise of their functions, required to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons with protected characteristics and those that do not share them.197 Where exercising relevant functions (e.g. education and health provision), public authorities are required to have due regard to this duty.

Incidents of discrimination in public services

138.Throughout this inquiry, as well as hearing of explicit incidents of discrimination in goods and services, we also heard about discrimination by public services, some explicit and some indirect. While it may be uncommon to find service providers that explicitly state that they will not accept Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, witnesses have told us that barriers are often placed so as to make it very difficult for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people to access them. Clinks, an organisation working with prisoners, told us about barriers to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller prisoners who have low literacy levels:

Services in prison are requested through a written form, leaving illiterate prisoners to rely on other prisoners to access any healthcare, education, housing or employment services. Similarly, access to services and employment post-release in the community often relies on a good level of literacy, creating additional barriers to desistance from crime.198

139.While our witnesses spoke about the need to ensure that front-line staff were not discriminating, several described the problem as more structural, leading service providers to stereotype the Communities, consciously or otherwise. Jim Davis of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Police Association described it as:

We are linking Gypsy and Traveller ethnicity with problems in a way that we do not do with any other ethnic group. By doing that, we are negatively labelling Gypsies and Travellers.199

140.We heard how this may play out in practice when taking evidence from Operation Liberal, a police unit based in the East Midlands that deals with “serious and organised acquisitive criminality”.200 Sergeant Gary Ogden, representing Operation Liberal told us that the unit does not collect the ethnicities of potential offenders but also stated that “Ninety per cent may be from Gypsy and Traveller Communities”.201 The Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Police Association was concerned that the materials that Operation Liberal were using referred to Travellers as “the global money-making web of Ireland’s millionaire Travellers” and that this was encouraging officers to tar every Traveller with the same brush.202 Libby McVeigh from the EHRC told us that she believes that this is indicative of a wider problem of a failure to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty to have due regard to the need to foster good relations between communities.203 We do not believe that the police are the only public service that is guilty of this failure, but we do feel that they provide a stark example of how a culture of stereotyping can lead organisations to treat Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people in a discriminatory manner.

141.We have heard too many incidents of discrimination from service providers to conclude that these are isolated cases. Public services should consider this report a reminder of their duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty and that discrimination can be structural as well as overt.

Implementing the Public Sector Equality Duty in public services

142.As we heard from Libby McVeigh, there is widespread evidence that public services are failing to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, whether through making assumptions about the educational potential of a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller person,204 refusing to record their ethnicity in any meaningful way,205 or by leaving the Communities out of policy documents that drive local agendas.206

143.Jim Davis of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Policy Association told us that he felt that part of the problem was ignorance of the implications of the PSED for public service providers:

Certainly within the police, I suspect—certainly it is my experience when I worked there—that most police officers on the ground really did not have an understanding of what that duty was. They probably linked it more to individual bigotry—you can’t say racist things about people—rather than understanding to look at organisational behaviours and procedures and auditing them in terms of the effect they have.207

However, Libby McVeigh argued that change needed to come from a proper review of public services’ “objectives and outcomes” so that structural change is achieved.208 She argued that, if these structural changes were made then “everybody, at the frontline or not, would be aware of the need to prioritise those issues” and thus the inequalities would be resolved.209 While this strategy may be theoretically sound, we feel that there must be more practical steps that public bodies could take and that an awareness of the PSED and the duties under it would be a good start.

The role of training in tackling discrimination

144.Some of the Ministerial Working Group commitments related to training, including a report produced by Allied Health Solutions that recommended that:

The government departments of England and national organisations should set out a work programme to ensure that healthcare professionals have appropriate skills, attitudes and understanding of the health issues facing vulnerable groups.210

HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) reported to the Government that the equality guidance given to prison officers had been improved as a response to the Ministerial Working Group,211 but this was criticised by Clinks, a charity working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller prisoners, as seemingly having little effect on levels of discrimination.212 Fiona Parker of the Youth Custody Service told us that, as a result of the Lammy Review on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic inequalities in the justice system, she was putting more of a focus on specialist training:

[We are] developing that reflective practice approach so that we do not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. There is a lot of learning that we want to develop and share over the years ahead.213

145.Gary Ogden of Operation Liberal told us that much of the problem is that frontline officers are only given basic training on equality issues at the start of their careers and that this is never repeated.214 However, we are struck by how the training seems to focus on how to prevent frontline staff from behaving in an overtly discriminatory manner, rather than tackling the roots of the problem. Training on the Public Sector Equality Duty is rare, although it is the responsibility of every person working in the public sector to ensure they are compliant.

146.Jim Davis also told us that the role of senior leaders stepping up and championing Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities can make more difference than any other measure. He told us that this had happened in his previous force, Thames Valley Police:

The assistant chief constable at the time came out publicly and said, “We have to be honest and say that we have not got this right up until now,” and made a commitment to change. That had an enormous effect on the culture within Thames Valley—it is not perfect, but it is a lot better than it was—and the relationship with its Gypsy and Traveller populations. Just that one thing of taking ownership made a big difference.215

147.We received no evidence that senior leaders in public services were being trained in how to change the structures of their organisations to make them comply with the PSED and we feel that this is what may be needed. Change must come from the top, as well as the bottom.

148.While we heard mixed evidence about the effectiveness of training, we believe that training can be effective if it goes beyond “awareness raising” and trains frontline staff on their duties under the Equality Act as well as on cultural competence. We also believe that what has been lacking in some of these organisations is a zero-tolerance approach from organisation leaders. We recommend that senior leaders in all public service bodies be trained in the Public Sector Equality Duty and that each body have a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller “champion”, similar to the role that exists in the National Police Chiefs Council.

Individuals tackling discrimination

149.Evidence that we have taken on other inquiries shows how difficult it is for individuals to enforce their rights under the Equality Act.216 For Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, this challenge is even more acute, due to low levels of literacy, English language skills and ability to navigate a complex legal system. Our evidence suggests that this is compounded by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people seeing discrimination as a “fact of life” that they should simply accept.217 We were told that the EHRC had provided a grant for a short-term project that trained Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people in enforcing their equality rights, but that this funding ended after less than four months.218 Again, this is evidence of short-term, piecemeal interventions that are unsustained, if well-intentioned.

150.It is regrettable that many in the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities feel that discrimination is inevitable, and they must tolerate it. The Government should work with community organisations to train Gypsy, Roma and Traveller individuals to understand their rights, identify discrimination and to give them the tools to take legal action to challenge discrimination.

Hate Crime

151.Hate incidents and hate crimes are recorded by the police according to one of five strands. Hate incidents against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are recorded under the “race” strand and official statistics are not broken down to show which racial group is being targeted.219 However, Josie O’Driscoll from GATE Herts, a charity organisation that acts as a third-party reporter of hate crime, told us that they had recorded 420 hate incidents against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people since 2016, with 284 relating to incidents that occurred online.220 Both Deputy Chief Constable Janette McCormick, the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller lead for the National Police Chief’s Council and Josie O’Driscoll of GATE Herts told us that they believe that the numbers that were being recorded were a huge under-estimate.221

How hate incidents are reported

152.Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people who experience a hate incident have a choice to report it directly to their local police force, to report it to GATE Herts222 or report it through True Vision, the Government’s online reporting portal.223 Improving and developing the True Vision site so that it would cater better for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people was one of the commitments made by the Ministerial Working Group in 2012.224 The Government reported that it had created a downloadable poster to encourage the Communities to report hate crime and also a specific page on the website for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people.225 However, the National Federation of Gypsy and Traveller Liaison Groups told us that it was still difficult for individuals to fill in the form, saying that the website is “word heavy and difficult to negotiate”.226 The Government announced in the Hate Crime Action Plan review that the NPCC would be refreshing the True Vision website in the coming year to make it more user-friendly.227 The APPG on Traveller Law Reform recommended that a reporting mechanism be developed by the Communities themselves to ensure that reporting is encouraged.228

153.We welcome the Government’s commitment to updating the True Vision website to make it more user-friendly and look forward to seeing a website that encourages Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, who might struggle with literacy or digital skills, to report incidents of hate crime.

154.The issue of trust was raised by witnesses in relation to reporting, due to the relationship between Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people and the police. Deputy Chief Constable McCormick categorised it in this way:

If you, as a child, always see the police in a negative light because the only time we come to see you is when we are moving you on, when there is probably conflict between a settled community and a Traveller community and, frankly, probably crimes on both sides—hate crime on one side, and maybe damage on the other—and we are adjudicating that, then you will be brought up distrusting the police. It does not matter how much we go in there with a positive light; we are balancing the very emotive tensions between two communities.229

She described the work that needed to be done to build trust as a “big mountain to climb”.230

155.Josie O’Driscoll told us about training GATE Herts has been delivering to police forces and highlighted the fact that, often, the only time that the police come into contact with Gypsy and Traveller communities is when there is an unauthorised encampment, which, she said, colours the views of police officers towards the Communities.231 Deputy Chief Constable McCormick told us that she was encouraging the use of liaison officers, who would visit caravan sites regularly, so that when an incident occurred, they were already familiar to the residents:

This is about having confidence that the person you are going to speak to is going to understand the issues and believe you.232

As a stopgap measure, we feel that it is important that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people can report hate incidents to trusted bodies such as GATE Herts. The current issue around third-party reporting organisations is that they are very localised (GATE Herts in Hertfordshire and Traveller Movement in London) and so, if a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller person is a victim in Derbyshire or Cornwall and does not have access to the internet or written materials, they are effectively excluded from being able to report.

156.The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government told us that it had provided £27,500 of funding to GATE Herts in 2018/19 and £35,000 to Traveller Movement in 2017/18 for specific hate crime awareness projects, although these projects are mostly about encouraging reporting rather than facilitating it.233

157.The Home Office should work with GATE Herts, with a view to creating more physical reporting sites, and should train community organisations to encourage Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people to report hate crime when it occurs.

194 Moore & Anor v Secretary of State for Communities And Local Government [2015] EWHC 44 (Admin) (21 January 2015)

195 McClellan v Gypsy Traveller Education Information Project (2008), unreported

196 P O’Leary and others v Allied Domecq and others (2000) 29 August, unreported

197 Equality Act 2010, section 149

198 Clinks (GRT0030)

199 Q500 [Jim Davis]