Ethnic Minority Recruitment (Hansard, 23 January 1990)

§ Mr. Archie Hamilton

A copy of the report by independent consultants has today been placed in the Library of the House.

The report was commissioned by the MOD after a survey had revealed that only 1.1 per cent. of recruits to the armed forces during 1987–88 came from the ethnic minorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman) made clear at the time his wish to see more members of the ethnic minorities joining the services and asked the consultants to advise on why comparatively few applied to the services, why their applications were less likely to succeed and how the situation could be improved.

The report falls into three parts. The first deals with the results of research designed to establish attitudes towards employment generally and towards employment in the armed forces in particular. The results suggest that in most respects the attitudes of young people from the ethnic minorites are not markedly different from those of their white counterparts. However, they are less likely to consider a career in the armed forces for a number of reasons, including in many cases the fear that they will encounter racial discrimination.

The second part of the report reviews the services' existing recruitment criteria and practices as they affect the ethnic minorities. It concludes that the selection process is thorough and objective, conforming generally to the Commission for Racial Equality's code of practice and the Institute of Personnel Management's equal opportunities code. However, the report identifies scope for building upon existing good management practice and also some possible areas where indirect discrimination could arise, though there was no evidence that this was happening.

The third part of the report suggests ways in which the situation might be improved. It proposes a long-term marketing strategy to encourage a more positive attitude towards the services by young people from the ethnic minorities; a short-term marketing strategy to target recruiting efforts more effectively towards members of the ethnic minorities who are interested in a career in the services; an internal strategy for improving selection procedures; and some organisational changes intended to 587W achieve a more co-ordinated and effective implementation of these strategies. In all the report contains 23 separate recomendations.

We welcome the report and have accepted all but two of the recommendations. We intend to adopt a policy of giving positive encouragement to applications from members of the ethnic minorities. This will involve, among other things, projecting a more positive message in our advertising, making recruiting offices more welcoming, special training for recruiting staff, greater use of recruiters from the ethnic minorities in selected areas and the building up of more contact between the services and young people from the ethnic minorities. In addition, we will be introducing a more detailed form of ethnic monitoring of applicants to help us identify where special difficulties are being encountered during the selection process and we shall be looking critically at a number of the selection tests employed to ensure that any possibility of indirect discrimination is eliminated.

We are concerned at the finding that fear of racial discrimination deters members of the ethnic minorities from applying to join the services. The services are equal opportunity employers, under the terms of the Race Relations Act, and we will continue to make it clear that no form of racial discrimination will be tolerated and that all complaints will be properly investigated. Many service men and service women from the ethnic minorities are already pursuing successful careers in all three services: we intend to give greater publicity to their achievements as an encouragement to others.

Implementation of the report will be closely monitored by Ministers, who attach great importance to increasing the number of recruits from the ethnic minorities, while recognising, as does the report, that a sustained effort will be required if attitudes are to be changed and that dramatic increases in the number of ethnic minority recruits are unlikely in the short term.

This last point is confirmed by the provisional results of the 1988–89 survey of applicants by ethnic origins, which show very little change from the 1987–88 results: 1.6 per cent. of applicants and 1.1 per cent. of successful recruits identified themselves as belonging to the ethnic minorities.

Copies of the final results of the 1987–88 survey and the provisional results of the 1988–89 survey have been placed in the Library of the House. As last year, the provisional 1988–89 results will be published in the Statement on the Defence Estimates.