Addressing minority ethnic youth unemployment through transparency

Transcription

1 Addressing minority ethnic youth unemployment through transparency BECTU, the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph & Theatre Union, is the UK independent union for those working in broadcasting, film, theatre, entertainment, leisure, interactive media and allied areas. The union represents more than 26,500 permanently employed, contract and freelance workers working in production, technical, administrative, front of house and allied roles. BECTU welcomes the Work and Pensions Committee s Inquiry into Youth Unemployment and we wish to draw your attention to the issue of unemployment of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) youth. We wish to put forward a specific, inexpensive proposal simple to implement and completely in accord with the Coalition Agreement which we believe could make a very substantial difference and speed the pace of change. For a decade the union has worked in partnership with the BBC and other major broadcasting and film industry employers on what has been described as the flagship industry-wide race diversity programme, Move on Up. BECTU developed Move on Up in order to assist BAME professionals to move on up in their careers and to assist employers to reach BAME talent that they would otherwise have missed. Over 10 years the union has set up more than 5,400 individual personal contacts between approximately 1,800 black and minority ethnic professionals and 730 top film and broadcasting executives. This has led to jobs, programme commissions and many other opportunities for the BAME professionals. BECTU is the only trade union to have twice been awarded the Trades Union Congress Equality Award, and Move on Up has been cited by the CBI as an example of good practice. This decade of successful proactive intervention to increase minority ethnic representation in the workplace has given BECTU an extremely well-informed perspective from which we make this submission. Employment discrimination It is a shocking fact that in 2012 nearly 50% of black people aged under 24 are unemployed, compared with 20% of white people of the same age group 1. This is a scale of unemployment that will blight whole communities and fragment our society, and it is a stark rebuttal of claims that race discrimination is no longer a major problem in employment. Discrimination in employment is further demonstrated by two studies published by the Dept for Work and Pensions. The Report 2, published in 2007, showed that white people had a 76% chance of being employed while ethnic minority workers had only a 60% chance a 16-point difference. 1 Office for National Statistics /76: the Business Commission on Race Equality in the Workplace, National Employment Panel, DWP 2007

2 In 2009 the DWP published A Test for Racial Discrimination in Recruitment Practice in British Cities pairs of job applications one indicating a white applicant and the other indicating an ethnic minority applicant, both equally matched in education, qualifications and work experience were sent to employers in seven major British cities in response to advertisements for vacancies. The key test was which applicants were called for interview. The survey concluded that while 4% of public sector employers discriminated against BAME applicants, in the private sector it was 35%. The survey points out that public sector employers are required by law to promote equality and make efforts to reduce racial and other discrimination. Private sector employers do not face the same requirements. Film, broadcasting and the arts The creative media sector 4 is a major contributor to the UK economy. According to the sector skills council Creative Skillset, in the summer quarter of 2010 creative employment in the UK totalled more than 2-million jobs. These are overwhelmingly in the private sector. Characterising large parts of this sector is the direct or indirect reliance on public funding, or licences awarded by the public. The film industry for example over 10 years received more than 160m of funding from the then UK Film Council for more than 900 films. The commercial broadcasting industry makes its profits on the back of licences awarded on behalf of the public by the regulator Ofcom. The Arts Council of England distributed more than 588-million of public money to arts organizations in , including the investment of 351- million of regular funding in about 848 organisations 5. Diversity The creative industries are generally based in areas where BAME communities are concentrated for example one third of those working in the creative media industries are based in London, where 31% of London s workforce is BAME 6. So it could be expected that, given the geographical locations of these industries coupled with a strong reliance on public funding or licences, BAME 3 Research Report no 607: A Test for Racial Discrimination in Recruitment Practice in British Cities, Martin Wood, Jon Hales, Susan Purdon, Tanja Sejersen and Oliver Hayllar. A report of research carried out by National Centre for Social Research on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions 4 Creative Skillset defines the Creative Media sector as including companies involved in: advertising, textiles, fashion, film, television, radio, photo imaging, interactive media, publishing, animation, content for computer games, commercials and promos, corporate production, post production and visual special effects and other specialist facilities. 5 Arts Council of England Annual Review 2010/11 6 Sector Skills Assessment for the Creative Media Industries in England, Skillset, January 2011

3 representation in this workforce would be higher than their 9% representation within the economy as a whole. In fact just 7% of those in the creative media industries are BAME 7. BECTU believes that progress to achieve real diversity in film, broadcasting and the arts has stalled and there is no meaningful commitment on the part of the funders or the regulator to bring about change. In commercial broadcasting, the regulator s equality report published in states that minority ethnic employment had remained virtually unchanged since In the film industry, which is heavily concentrated in London and the southeast, on current rates of progress BECTU calculates that it will take more than 100 years before the diversity of the London film industry s workforce reflects the diversity of London s overall workforce. In the arts, employment of black and minority ethnic staff in companies funded by the Arts Council of England decreased in number between the 2009/10 and 2010/11 periods but while white staff numbers declined by 2%, ethnic minority staff numbers declined by 12%. Official attitudes from the funders and regulators show a failure to take the issue sufficiently seriously and little meaningful commitment to take action to improve matters. In commercial broadcasting, Ofcom collects some equality monitoring data although it has never collected data for performers but refuses to publish it other than on an anonymous basis which ensures that licence holders avoid public accountability. Equality monitoring is an enforceable licence condition, yet Ofcom decided to make this licence condition effectively voluntary, adopting a policy of taking no enforcement action against those who fail to adhere to this compulsory contractual requirement. The regulator fought hard over several years against a Freedom of Information request to publish equality monitoring data and succeeded in keeping it secret. The Arts Council of England, like Ofcom, collects this data from its clients as a contractual requirement and has failed to require equality monitoring of performers, but claimed client confidentiality when asked for the data it does possess, choosing like Ofcom to publish anonymised summaries. The UK Film Council did not require film production companies in receipt of public money to carry out equality monitoring of their productions, so it is not possible to establish how well those companies reflected the diversity of the public whose money they were spending. The British Film Institute, the 7 ibid 8 p21 Equal Opportunities Report 2009, published by the Broadcast Equality and Training Regulator, since disbanded by Ofcom

4 successor to the UK Film Council, has indicated that the UKFC s equality remit has been disbanded. The BFI has just ended a consultation on its fiveyear plan called "New Horizons for UK Film, BFI Future plan in which one sentence is devoted to addressing diversity in the workforce. Impact on BAME youth unemployment This failure of transparency over the diversity of workforces employed by companies in receipt of funding or licences awarded on behalf of the public has, in BECTU s view, contributed to the shockingly high rate of black youth unemployment. The media and entertainment industries are characterized by informal recruitment practices in which who you know, and the informal networks you are in, are just as important as what you know. Young minority ethnic graduates aiming to enter the industry report that they have fewer contacts than their white counterparts and do not gain access to the informal networks in which knowledge of vacancies is circulated 9. BECTU s award-winning Move on Up initiative aims to address this issue for BAME professionals, both experienced workers and those at the start of their careers. BAME professionals also report problems of stereotyping in cultural ghettos 10 : while they may be hired to work on programmes aimed at BAME communities, they are far less likely to be hired for programmes considered mainstream. It was only last year that the producer of the ITV drama Midsomer Murders caused major upset defending the all-white cast by stating that the drama would not work if ethnic minorities were included. The widespread yet unlawful practice in film, broadcasting and the arts of unpaid internships makes it even harder for young BAME workers to gain a foothold in these industries, as the majority of those who can afford to work for nothing tend to be from the white middle class. BECTU, liaising with Her Majesty s Customs and Excise, is working to stamp out such exploitation which takes advantage of a vast pool of people chasing too few jobs. The union takes legal action itself against these companies when appropriate. But so long as there is no real pressure on employers to work harder to address the under-representation of minority ethnic workers in their companies, productions or licensed broadcast services, black youth unemployment is going to remain high. The public, on whose behalf lucrative broadcasting licenses and hundreds of millions of pounds are bestowed upon private and third sector companies, should be entitled to see how adequately the diversity of our society is reflected in their workforce. Currently, as demonstrated above, the funders and regulator are denying the public this transparency. 9 Independent evaluation of Move on Up, Dr Iona Jones, ibid

5 Our proposal BECTU therefore wishes to propose that all companies in receipt of public funding, or licences awarded on behalf of the public, should be obliged to carry out detailed equality monitoring and send the data to the funder or regulator which in turn is required to publish this data annually for each named company or licence. As Arts Council-funded and Ofcom licencees are already required to carry out equality monitoring, and both organisations publish the data albeit anonymously, this amounts to hardly any increase in work or expenditure. The BAME workforce is so under-represented in the film industry (a 2008 survey quoted the figure of 7% of the London film industry workforce compared with 24% of London s overall workforce 11 ; London s overall workforce has since been stated as 31% in 2011) that BECTU believes this is the least that should be expected of both film industry funding recipients and the BFI. This proposal has the support of the media and entertainment unions and the Trades Union Congress. Conclusion The Coalition came into office with a commitment to transparency and accountability. This simple proposal is completely in accord with Coalition policy. At a time when almost 50% of black people under 24 are unemployed, real action is needed. We acknowledge that our proposal is one of many necessary interventions. However, holding companies accountable for the diversity, or otherwise, of the staff and freelances they employ when they are enjoying the benefits of public money or licences, is precisely what minority ethnic workers are asking for. While we have focused our proposals on film, broadcasting and the arts, we believe it is equally appropriate for publicly funded or licenced companies in all industries. We urge the Inquiry to accept this proposal.. Contact: Janice Turner Diversity officer BECTU Janice@stagescreenandradio.org.uk Tel Skillset Feature Film Production Workforce Survey Report 2008