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

improving
government
service
delivery
to minority
ethnic groups
Chapter 2: Northern Ireland Research Findings 70_71
Less than half of the sample (24 respondents, 41%) said that their organisation’s corporate/strategic plan
included the needs of members of staff from minority ethnic groups. However this rose to 34 (58%) for the
needs of customers of minority ethnic groups. Most of the respondents indicated, as can be seen in Table 8,
that their organisation had policies and practices in place for recording and dealing with racist incidents.
Table 8: Racist incidents
Type of complaint
Are there policies and practices?
Yes No Don’t know/Can’t say
Made by an employee about another employee 45 1 7
Made by an employee about a client/customer 34 3 16
Made by a client/customer about an employee 48 0 5
Made by an employee about management 45 0 8
Made by a client/customer about management 47 0 5
It was interesting to note that 16 respondents (27%) did not know if there was a policy in place to enable
them to complain about a client/customer. This was found in both the PSNI (9 respondents, 35% of PSNI
respondents) and NIHE (7 respondents, 35% of NIHE respondents). As well, 30% of the NIHE respondents
indicated that they did not know how to make a complaint about management (6 respondents).
Employee Profile
The survey also assessed the number of employees within each agency/department that were from a minority
ethnic community. In terms of the number of managers from a minority ethnic background only 10 people
completed the question. Of these ten eight stated none, one stated one, and one stated thirteen. When this
was further analysed the respondent indicating that there were 13 managers was found to be from the health
sector. Similarly the question on fieldwork staff was missed by 49 people and of those who did complete eight
said none, one said one and one said 10 minority ethnic staff. Again this 10 were within the health sector. Of
the 10 who completed the question on ancillary staff eight stated that there were no employees from a minority
ethnic background, one stated nine, and one stated 60 minority ethnic employees again from within health.
However it must be noted that this cannot be used as an indication of the number of employees within each
sector and indeed the high percentage who failed to answer the question indicates either a lack of knowledge
on this issue or willingness to respond.
Data Collection
Just over one third (34%, 20 respondents) said that their organisation had been involved in equality proofing
however over one half (54%, 32 respondents) did not know. The collection of data was also ascertained
with at least three quarters of the sample stating that data was collected on disability (66%), ethnicity (75%),
nationality (68%), and religion (78%). However only 29% stated data was collected on sexual orientation (Table
9). Within the focus groups the collection of data was discussed with many stating that it was collected but
that they did not know what it was used for and indeed some even stated that they did not care,
“ We are asked to produce them (data), we don’t know why and we don’t care, we are
asked to give them and we do end of story.”