Theresa’s race audit
PM launches year-long blitz to root out inequality from public services
THERESA May has ordered a year-long audit of all public services to ensure ethnic minorities and the white working classes are not being treated unfairly.
The root-and-branch review will consider whether people are treated differently by schools, hospitals and the courts because of racial background.
The huge administrative exercise will put extra pressure on public services at a time of crisis, with the NHS in deficit and schools overcrowded.
Mrs May said the plan would help tackle ‘ burning injustices’ and reveal ‘difficult truths’ about how race affects the level of service people receive. It will consider whether someone’s skin colour affects how quickly they get a GP appointment or how well they do at school – and whether they are more likely to be tasered.
Number Ten said the findings would lead to new policies, adding: ‘The audit will show disadvantages suffered by white working- class people as well as ethnic minorities.’ For example, it will give more details about why white workingclass boys are much less likely than others to go to university.
The Prime Minister said: ‘When I stood on the steps of Downing Street on my first day, I made clear that I believe in a United Kingdom by every definition – and that means the government I lead will stand up for you and your family against injustice and inequality. Today, I am launching an audit to look into racial disparities in our public services that stretches right across government. It will highlight the differences in outcomes for people of different backgrounds in every area – from health to education, childcare to welfare, employment, skills and criminal justice.’
She added: ‘This audit will reveal difficult truths, but we should not be apologetic about shining a light on injustices as never before.
‘It is only by doing so we can make this country work for everyone, not just a privileged few.’
All aspects of the state – schools, universities, GPs’ surgeries, hospitals, courts, job centres and benefits offices – will be covered by the audit.
A team will be set up in the Cabinet Office to collect information from across the country about race, gender, income and geographical location. This will then be collated to show up any disparities in access to services and how people are treated.
Existing data shows that Britons from a black Caribbean background are three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school.
Black women are seven times more likely to be detained under mental health laws than white women – and the employment rate for ethnic minorities is ten percentage points lower than the national average.
In addition, members of ethnic minority households are almost twice as likely to live in relative poverty as white people. Downing Street said that, in the first instance, civil servants will use data already being collected to inform their conclusions.
But if more information is needed, public sector bodies such as schools and hospitals will be asked to provide it. Details uncovered by the exercise will be published on the Government’s website next autumn, and the findings will then go on to help ministers formulate policies to tackle the injustice.
A No 10 spokesman said: ‘It will help understand where there are geographical inequalities in services that affect people of some races more than others, such as the white working class who tend to live in coastal towns or BME [black and minority
‘Shining a light on injustices’
ethnic] communities who tend to live in inner cities.’
They added that the review will help ‘force poor-performing services to improve’. The move is designed to have the same effect as the ‘stop and search’ audit that Mrs May ordered chief constables to carry out when she was home secretary. It revealed that people from black and ethnic minority communities were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Now, the proportion is only four times as likely.
WHEN Theresa May took over from David Cameron, this paper applauded her pledge to eschew gimmicks and political games. So how depressing that one of her Government’s first initiatives is to order a massive bureaucratic audit of ‘racial disparities in public service outcomes’.
The Mail believes passionately that people of every race should be treated equally – and we welcome the Prime Minister’s acknowledgment that workingclass white boys suffer disadvantages as well as ethnic minorities. But will this survey really help?
In the week it emerged that NHS bosses are planning closures all over the country, our public services surely have quite enough on their plates without being saddled with yet more paperwork.
Indeed, isn’t this Domesday Book of Disadvantage exactly the sort of gimmick Mrs May vowed to reject?