Kemi Badenoch (Image by UK Parliament)

The government has funded a national recruitment campaign to find more adoptive parents, including those from an ethnic minority background, to improve adoption rates for ethnic minority children. The latest data shows that the number of ethnic minority approved adopters has increased from 450 at March, 2020 to 670 at March, 2022.

Alongside this, the government is backing the trial of an automatic ‘opt-in’ for young people to receive independent legal advice in police custody, and has published the ambitious schools’ white paper, which sets out how the government will raise standards and improve grades in reading, writing and maths, benefiting the ethnic minority groups who are overrepresented amongst pupils not meeting expected literacy and numeracy standards in schools.

Last spring the government set out the ground-breaking, measurable and deliverable Inclusive Britain action plan, in response to the report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

It set out 74 ambitious, cross-government steps to tackle unjust disparities, promote fairness, build trust, and level up communities.

Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, said, “The concrete actions we have delivered over the last year are improving people’s day-to-day lives, but I know that we need to do more to tackle disparities and build people’s trust in our great institutions.

“The groundbreaking Inclusive Britain Action Plan was an excellent first step, and we will continue to deliver on its promises, tackling the complex causes behind racial disparities with data-driven action.

“We must all work together to ensure no-one is held back by their race, social or ethnic background.”

Other measures covered in today’s report include:

• New guidance for employers on the ethnicity pay gap – published today. It sets out a voluntary system to measure, report on and address any unfair ethnicity pay gaps within their workforce to offer support for businesses. The government’s approach provides assistance to businesses and employers in this area, while adding no additional burdens to those generating jobs and prosperity for the whole country.
• Improving the stop and search process through new public and personal safety training for police officers which includes developed de-escalation and communication skills to boost the quality of policing across the country;
• Appointing an expert panel to develop a new exemplar history curriculum to widen children’s knowledge and foster cohesion.
• Highlighting stop and search disparities by publishing new data and analysis, including disparity analysis by force (allowing comparisons to be made) and by reason for search, and analysis of the relationship between stop and search and economic deprivation.

There is more work to be done to tackle disparities and to build trust in institutions. The government will continue its work to deliver the remaining actions in Inclusive Britain over the next 12 months. Action will tie in to major landmarks this year, including the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, in order to further promote and celebrate the UK’s diversity.