The focus on managing austerity budgets has tended to obscure the fact that ethnic diversity within the public sector at the senior end appears to have ground to a halt. A recent report by Green Park into diversity found alarming BME under-representation at the upper echelons of Whitehall and local government which it says ‘is so low that it almost defies analysis.’
There is just one non-white council chief executive in London (and he is retiring) and none among the core cities outside London. The report adds: ‘There is less ethno-cultural diversity in local authority leadership across the UK than in the FTSE 100; even the most diverse area of Britain, London, has a lower proportion of visible minority executives than the FTSE100.’ Among the general population 13% belong to a minority ethnic group (MEG) and in the core cities 17% but in London the percentage rises to 40%. Yet among the top 20 posts at London boroughs just 7.3% come from multiple ethnic groups with Tower Hamlets at the top. In the core cities 90% of chief officers are white with the most diverse being Liverpool. Among county councils 96.5% of chief officers are white with children’s services at 97.1%, adults at 98.9%, environment at 98.3% and corporate resources and finance at 96%. Out of 1,500 senior council posts just 64 are from a black, minority ethnic background (BME).
The report, The Green Park Public Service Leadership 5,000, was led by the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, who now chairs Green Park Diversity Analytics. He was one of the guests at a recent round table debate at Green Park’s London offices chaired by The MJ and attended by local authority chief executives and directors on what could be done to increase diversity within local government.
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