Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to protect university staff from racial abuse.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Racial harassment is unacceptable, and we cannot tolerate staff and students being victims of it at our world-leading universities. There is no place in our society - including within higher education – for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism. Universities have clear responsibilities in this regard.
Higher education providers are independent and autonomous organisations. Like all employers, higher education providers have responsibilities under the Equality Act (2010) in relation to their staff. We expect them discharge their responsibilities fully and have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law, and to investigate and swiftly address all hate crime.
We encourage providers to make use of tools such as the Race Equality Charter and the Race at Work Charter to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers that affect minority ethnic staff and students.
The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers recognises the need to create and develop positive environments and cultures in which all researchers can flourish and achieve their full potential. This includes having effective policies and practice for tackling discrimination, bullying and harassment and providing appropriate support for those reporting issues.
By improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff within higher education we can ensure that everyone who has the potential to thrive at university, both as a student and as a member of staff, does so.
Asked by: Paul Farrelly (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report entitled, Tackling harassment: universities challenged; and what steps he is taking to ensure that university staff receive adequate training to deal effectively with racial harassment.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Racial harassment is unacceptable and we cannot tolerate staff and students being victims of it at our world-leading universities. There is no place in our society - including within higher education (HE) – for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism. Universities have clear responsibilities in this regard.
As independent institutions, HE providers are responsible for training and development opportunities available for their staff. We encourage providers to make use of tools such as the Race Equality Charter and the Race at Work Charter to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers that affect minority ethnic staff and students.
We will continue to work closely with partners, including Universities UK and the Office for Students on matters of harassment and hate crime in HE.
The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers recognises the need to create and develop positive environments and cultures in which all researchers can flourish and achieve their full potential. This includes having effective policies and practice for tackling discrimination, bullying and harassment and providing appropriate support for those reporting issues.
By improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff within HE we can ensure that everyone who has the potential to thrive at university, both as a student and as a member of staff, does so.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many BAME staff are employed at (a) grade 7, (b) grade 5 and (c) grade 3 in his Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff employed as at 30 June 2019 in Grade 7, Grade 5 (Deputy Director equivalent) and Grade 3 (Director equivalent) roles are summarised in the table below. Where the total number of BAME staff is fewer than 5, the actual number is suppressed to protect anonymity. The following agencies are included in these figures: Education & Skills Funding Agency, Standards & Testing Agency and Teaching Regulation Agency.
Grade | Number of BAME staff (headcount) |
Grade 7 | 174 |
Grade 5 (Deputy Director) | 12 |
Grade 3 (Director) | Fewer than 5 |
The department has an internal Diversity & Inclusion Strategy with a priority of increasing BAME representation at senior grades. We have introduced a range of interventions to attract and recruit more people from diverse backgrounds that include anonymised sifting and more diverse interview panels and we expect to see an improvement in these numbers over the next 2 to 5 years. We recently launched Project Race which aims to improve race equality and tackle disproportionate outcomes for BAME colleagues though outreach, support, and open honest discussion.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of equality and diversity training provided by higher education institutions; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making that training mandatory.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The government is committed to tackling inequalities. That is why, in October 2018, my right. hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, launched measures to tackle barriers facing ethnic minorities in the workplace, including a new Race at Work Charter and a consultation on ethnicity pay reporting.
Like all employers, higher education providers have responsibilities under the Equality Act (2010) in relation to their staff. The government expects providers to comply fully with their obligations. As autonomous and independent institutions, it is for individual providers to ensure that the training they provide is appropriate.
The Equality Challenge Unit (part of Advance HE) has published guidance for higher education providers on embedding equality and diversity into HR policies. The Race Equality Charter also helps higher education providers to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers standing in the way of minority ethnic staff and students. The Athena SWAN Charter recognises work undertaken to address gender equality.
The regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), and its predecessor, have provided over £4.7 million in funding for projects tackling sexual harassment, online harassment and hate-based harassment. This includes projects with a focus on developing and providing training for both staff and students on matters such as bystander intervention and handling of reports and disclosures.
In guidance to the OfS, the government has asked the regulator to positively engage with work to counter harassment and hate-crime and to make campuses places of tolerance for all students, and work with providers on equalities issues.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the (a) terms and conditions for, (b) recruitment and (c) career advancement of BAME members of staff at UK universities.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Despite recent progress in staff representation and progression, for example improvements in the number of women in leadership positions in higher education (HE), there is more to be done to create a HE workforce that is representative of British society.
On 1 February 2019, the government announced measures to tackle inequalities and improve outcomes for underrepresented groups in HE. These measures include asking the HE sector to take action to eliminate ethnic disparities in their workforce and support better outcomes for ethnic minority staff. UK Research and Innovation will also be commissioning a review to understand and address equality and diversity disparities in research and innovation funding.
HE providers are independent, autonomous bodies and are responsible for decisions about who they employ and the terms and conditions of employment they offer. Like every employer they must meet their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and give due consideration to the way their recruitment, retention and promotion practises affect different sections of their communities and staff at different stages of their career.
The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers states that ‘diversity and equality must be promoted in all aspects of the recruitment and career management of researchers’. We expect to see this commitment reinforced as a revised Concordat is published in Autumn 2019.
The Race Equality Charter also helps HE providers to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers that may be impacting on minority ethnic staff and students. By improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff within HE we can ensure that everyone who has the potential to thrive at university, both as a student and as a member of staff, does so.
Asked by: Lord Judd (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they have in place to safeguard against bullying and harassment of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children in schools and to prevent off-loading of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children when any such bullying and harassment occurs.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The government has sent a clear message to schools that bullying is unacceptable and should never be tolerated. All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. The public sector Equality Duty means that schools must have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, and victimisation. Schools must also have regard to the need to foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic, including race, and people who do not share it. Policies should reflect this where appropriate. We have issued guidance to schools about how to prevent and respond to bullying as part of their overall behaviour policy.
The department is providing over £2.8 million of funding between September 2016 and March 2020 to 4 anti-bullying organisations to support schools tackle bullying. This includes the Anne Frank Trust, who have developed the Free to Be debate programme, encouraging pupils to think about the importance of tackling prejudice, discrimination, and bullying.
The department’s preventing and tackling bullying guidance is clear that schools should do all they can to ensure bullied pupils continue to attend school. Removing bullied pupils from school, even for a short time, disrupts their education, and fails to address the causes of the problem.
In 2017, the department wrote to all secondary schools, reminding them of the rules surrounding exclusion. All schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register. The law is clear that a pupil’s name can only be deleted from the admission register on the grounds prescribed in regulation 8 of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, as amended.
Ofsted already considers records of pupils taken off roll and has also recently consulted on proposals that will see a strengthened focus on this issue. From September 2019, where Ofsted inspectors find off-rolling, this will always be addressed in the inspection report, and where appropriate will lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of the Race Disparity Audit in addressing inequalities in higher education.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
At the launch of the Race Disparity Audit in October 2017, the government committed to “explain or change” the ethnic disparities on the audit’s Ethnicity facts and figures website.
Since October 2017 the government has taken action, including on tackling disparities in access to and participation in higher education (HE) for ethnic minority students.
The audit’s ethnicity facts and figures website has been continually updated and extended to allow the public to see if ethnic disparities are improving or not, across over 160 important areas of public life. This has included the publication of data on undergraduate degree results and entrants at different HE providers with high, medium and low entry tariffs.
On February 1, the government announced action to tackle disparities in access to, and successful participation in, HE for ethnic minority students; and disparities in recruitment and progression for ethnic minority academics. This included plans to work with league table compilers on how they might consider performance on tackling inequalities between ethnic groups in university rankings, promoting the new transparency condition, and encouraging HE providers to make use of tools such as the Race at Work charter and the Race Equality Charter in their efforts to address inequality.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the support provided to teachers with Dyspraxia.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Equality Act (2010) provides a single, consolidated source of anti-discrimination law, covering all the types of discrimination that are unlawful. In England and Wales, the Act applies to all maintained and independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools. To support schools in ensuring they comply with the provisions of the Act, we published ‘The Equality Act (2010): advice for schools’ in February 2013.
Teach First is committed to ensuring that all candidates and participants are treated fairly - irrespective of disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, religion or any other factor.
Teach First looks for teaching potential in all candidates. Identifying information of candidates is removed from the screening process and recruiters are trained to avoid unconscious bias. Teach First encourages applications from candidates with disabilities and provides any additional support needed during training alongside their placement school and university partners.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards are in place in the Teach First programme to protect teachers with disabilities from discrimination.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Equality Act (2010) provides a single, consolidated source of anti-discrimination law, covering all the types of discrimination that are unlawful. In England and Wales, the Act applies to all maintained and independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools. To support schools in ensuring they comply with the provisions of the Act, we published ‘The Equality Act (2010): advice for schools’ in February 2013.
Teach First is committed to ensuring that all candidates and participants are treated fairly - irrespective of disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, religion or any other factor.
Teach First looks for teaching potential in all candidates. Identifying information of candidates is removed from the screening process and recruiters are trained to avoid unconscious bias. Teach First encourages applications from candidates with disabilities and provides any additional support needed during training alongside their placement school and university partners.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken to ensure the protection of teachers with disabilities from discrimination.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Equality Act (2010) provides a single, consolidated source of anti-discrimination law, covering all the types of discrimination that are unlawful. In England and Wales, the Act applies to all maintained and independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools. To support schools in ensuring they comply with the provisions of the Act, we published ‘The Equality Act (2010): advice for schools’ in February 2013.
Teach First is committed to ensuring that all candidates and participants are treated fairly - irrespective of disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, religion or any other factor.
Teach First looks for teaching potential in all candidates. Identifying information of candidates is removed from the screening process and recruiters are trained to avoid unconscious bias. Teach First encourages applications from candidates with disabilities and provides any additional support needed during training alongside their placement school and university partners.