THERESA May has ordered an unprecedented investigation into the extent of racial discrimination in the delivery of public services in an attempt to “end the burning injustices many people experience across Britain”.
Under the Whitehall audit, which the Prime Minister believes will expose “difficult truths” and “shine a light on how our public services treat people from different backgrounds,” members of the public will be able to check how their race affects how they are treated on key issues such as health, education and employment; the audit will be broken down by geographic location, income and gender.
Downing Street made clear that the investigation will reveal the disadvantages suffered not just by ethnic minorities but also by the white working class.
The aim is to ensure that the information garnered will help the Government and the public to force poor-performing services to improve.
“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,” declared Mrs May.
“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.
“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.”
The latest figures from the Equality and Human Rights Commission show large disparities between how people are treated depending on their race. They show:
*a person from a black Caribbean background is three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than their peers;
*a black woman is seven times more likely to be detained under mental health legislation than a white woman and
*the employment rate for ethnic minorities is 10 percentage points lower than the national average;
*people in ethnic minority households are almost twice as likely to live in relative poverty as white people and
*white working class boys are less likely to go to university than any other group.
Downing Street noted how this type of information is not systematically captured by public services or published transparently for the benefit of the public or the government. Only in a few areas has the UK Government collected such information specifically for the purpose of revealing racial disparity and, it noted, very rarely is it published in an open and accessible way.
The audit, No 10 explained, would also help understand where there were geographical inequalities in services, which affected people of some races more than others, such as the white working class who tended to live in coastal towns or black and minority ethnic communities which tended to live in inner cities.
As Home Secretary, the PM published stop and search data that revealed people from black and ethnic minority communities were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts. The publication helped hold police forces to account; the ratio has now reduced to four times more likely with the aim for a continued fall.
The audit will be led by a new dedicated Whitehall unit situated in the Cabinet Office, reporting jointly Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, and Ben Gummer, the Cabinet Office minister.
The first data is expected to be published before summer 2017 and will be updated annually to ensure the public can track improvement and better hold services to account.
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