§ Dr. David ClarkTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what policies he has introduced to increase the number of ethnic minorities in the armed forces. [20753]
§ Mr. SoamesThe services are committed to a range of measures to increase ethnic minority recruitment. These include increased use of recruiters from an ethnic minority background, better representation of ethnic minority service personnel in recruiting literature, special training for recruiters, production of brochures in ethnic minority languages to target parents, development of contacts with ethnic minority communities and advertising in the ethnic minority press and on local radio.
Each of the services' recruiting organisations has an officer responsible for making contact with ethnic minority organisations to ascertain the best approach to take to aid the recruitment of ethnic minorities.
In addition, we have appointed an independent consultant, the Office for Public Management, to undertake a review of existing service and civilian equal opportunities policies and employment initiatives for ethnic minority groups and recommend any improvements.