improving government service delivery to minority ethnic ... - NCCRI

It is important that training on service provision to minority ethnic groups explains the importance of data
collection. There are examples in this report that could be used to explain effective use of data, such as the
Central Scotland Police initiative ‘Safer Businesses for Ethnic Minorities’ in which statistics indicated that over
60 per cent of racist incidents occurred within business premises owned/managed by members of ethnic
minority communities and so a project was set up to address the issue.
252_Caroline Coleman,
South Tyrone Empowerment
Programme (STEP),
speaking at the conference.
Data can be gathered from a number of sources, and it is important that complementary data sources are
used. For example, Census data in Northern Ireland is widely acknowledged to be out of date and provides
inadequate differentiation of ethnicity vis-à-vis the actual ethnic make-up of the jurisdiction; or in the Republic
of Ireland data on PPSN provides only flows of workers from the EU, including EU Accession States and
does not represent the actual number of workers in the country. Quantitative and qualitative research may also
be required to provide an accurate profile of service users and potential service users. As described above,
traditional quantitative research may not in itself be adequate in planning service delivery for minority ethnic
groups. One panellist’s view at the conference in response to a question on data collection was:
“ I work with what is probably a very highly nomadic community [migrant workers] as
are some are the Traveller organisations that are here. One size doesn’t fit all. The kind
of data that we use to provide services for the majority of the community does not
necessarily work for the minority community. I would prefer to see qualitative information,
really good examples of good models…” 252
This is indicative of the fact that traditional data collection mechanisms in Northern Ireland have not served the
migrant worker population well and service providers are struggling to deal with this. Data collection based on a
variety of sources will help with service delivery planning, including target setting, and resource planning and will
be useful for benchmarking against the targets set. The table below describes the data collection process, uses
and sources.
Table 12: Data Collection
Ascertain: Purpose Data source
1 Who is currently using the
service
2 Who is not currently using the
service
3 What the outcomes are for the
client groups
Clients to be engaged in
relation to planning and
evaluating service provision.
Need to engage and ascertain
why they are not accessing
the service (e.g. systemic
barriers).
Establishing trends in minority
ethnic groups in relation
to outcomes (e.g. socioeconomic
indicators).
Internal data collated by the
organisation.
External data (e.g. Census –
if accurate), cross-referenced
with internal data (from no.1
above).
Internal and external data
sources (e.g. examination
results within a school as an
internal data source).
What has emerged from the research is that some current data collection is inadequate, missing, inaccurate or
piecemeal. Ideally service providers in each jurisdiction would develop standard data collection categories or
‘fields’ for forms, databases and reporting. Also, for the purposes of cross-border co-operation and comparability,