Brent Council: Does mere data gathering justify race equality award?

Nan Tewari has been following up the issue of Brent Council reaching the finals of the Race for Opportunity Award. This correspondence tells the story:

Dear Nan

Thank you for your phone call last week regarding Brent Council.

Our award categories are designed to celebrate and spotlight specific areas of best practice. The Transparency, Monitoring & Action Award specifically recognises best practice of the capture of ethnicity data within an organisation. It recognises organisations that are monitoring and evaluating the attraction, recruitment, progression, development, employee engagement, appraisal/performance ratings and retention of BAME employee in their workplace. We have this award because we believe that monitoring workforce data by ethnicity is one of the first and most important steps an employer can take towards understanding gaps in their workforce and improving diversity. 

We assess award entries against the criteria of the category being entered and this assessment is based on the information provided in the award application. Brent Council entered The Transparency, Monitoring & Action Award and their entry was scored in line with the award category criteria, and the entry met the requirements to be named as a finalist in this category.

All judging (our judging panels include external independent experts) has taken place and the winners will be announced at the dinner in October.  

Best wishes

Sandra

Sandra Kerr OBE

Race Equality Director

BITC

Dear Sandra,

I appreciate the time you have taken to reply and do not intend to take up your time with a protracted correspondence as this would be pointless.  I do however have some comments.

The mere exercise of data gathering does not confer equal opportunities status on an employer.  Brent has gone from being an Authority with significant BME representation in its management ranks to being the metaphorical pint of Guiness, notwithstanding the diversity of its population.

I have worked with many bodies that had been reluctant to change their ways of working on my recommendation citing that it would be contrary to their long established equal opportunity policies.    When I pointed out that the body in question notably lacked diversity in its ranks despite years of following these so-called equality policies, the light dawned and willingness to change followed.

I would respectfully suggest that your organisation could achieve much more by challenging monitoring and policy to actually deliver change, rather than to being ends in themselves.  Providing comfort to Brent Council by making an award to it (bad enough that it is one of two finalists!) would run completely counter to what BITC is supposed to stand for.

In the event that you are not familiar with the background to the uproar over ths issue by Brent residents and staff, I attach a couple of links for your information.  It is utterly unspeakable that Brent Council made no move to initiate disciplinary proceedings against its HR Director, Cara Davani, in the light of the Watford Employment Tribunal having found against her for race discrimination and victimisation.  No amount of statistical monitoring of diversity can eliminate the contempt which Brent Council has shown to its workforce by its having left this very HR DIrector in charge of a redundancy programme involving large numbers of (non-management grade) BME staff.    

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Tribunal finds employee suffered race discrimination, victimisation and constructive dismissal at hands of Brent Council

				WEMBLEY MATTERS: Tribunal finds employee suffered... The Employment Tribunals has announced its judgment in the case of Rosemary Clarke versus the London Borough of Brent and Ms Cara Davani, Brent's Director of...
				View on wembleymatters.blo...	Preview by Yahoo

WEMBLEY MATTERS: Brent Council Race Equality Award condemned

				WEMBLEY MATTERS: Brent Council Race Equality Awar... Following yesterday's revelation that Brent Council was a finalist for a Race for Opportunity award the organisation has received messages from local people about t...
				View on wembleymatters.blo...	Preview by Yahoo

 

Yours sincerely,

Nan Tewari

---

Unbelievable! Brent Council is a finalist for 'Race for Opportunity' award

If the news that Muhammed Butt had been chosen to headup the Equalities brief by London Council was not enough to declare irony dead, jaws dropped with a clang at the Brent Civic Centre today when the following notice was spotted on the Council Intranet:

Brent shortlisted for Race for Opportunity award 

We have been recognised for our commitment to increasing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation in the workplace. 

The council has been named as a finalist in the Transparency, Monitoring and Action award category at the Race for Opportunity Awards 2015. LINK

The awards celebrate outstanding practice, innovation and dedication to race equality and inclusion in UK workplaces. The winners will be announced at the Awards Dinner on Tuesday 6 October at the London Hilton, Park Lane.  

Sandra Kerr OBE, Race Equality Director, Business in the Community, said:  "Congratulations to Brent Council on being named as a finalist in the Transparency, Monitoring and Action Award category at the Race for Opportunity Awards 2015. 

"They are taking action to create a workplace culture which puts race equality at the heart of their activity and have demonstrated a strong commitment to ensuring that ethnic minority talent has equal opportunity to progress at every level.  

"It's a huge positive to see that they recognise the UK's changing demographics and are addressing the need to reflect the clients, communities and customers they serve, and I hope other organisations will learn from their example."

One Brent worker said, 'Imagine our faces when we saw this. We were speechless at the Council's barefaced cheek in putting themselves forward.'

Meanwhile unconfirmed rumours are circulating that the rule, devised by Cara Davani, prohibiting workers leaving the employ of the Council from taking their ipads with them, had been changed just before she left.