§ Mr. Jannerasked the Attorney-General what steps he and the Lord Chancellor have taken, since the coming into effect of the code of the Commission for Racial Equality on 1 April, to ensure compliance by their Departments and, in particular, with the recommendations in respect of ethnic monitoring and of positive action, respectively.
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe Lord Chancellor's Department took part in the surveys of the ethnic origins of non-industrial civil servants in the north-west and the county of Avon announced by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury, in the House on 24 March 1983 at column461. The Lord Chancellor will consider further action once the results of these surveys have been evaluated. The kind of positive action the code recommends can only be undertaken where under-representation can be demonstrated.
Of the other three Departments for which I answer—the Law Officers' Department, the Treasury Solicitor's Department and the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions—both the Treasury Solicitor's Department and the Director's Department reviewed their policies and procedures before the CRE's code of practice became operative and they issued additional guidance and instructions. Equal opportunity officers have also been designated within both Departments. None of the three Departments has carried out any ethnic monitoring, but future action will be considered once the results of the surveys have been evaluated.