Minutes – Ethnic Minority Employment
Task Force Meeting
4 October 2004. 28 October 2004, 15.00-16.30, Room 149, Richmond House.
Attendees
| Jane Kennedy MP (Chair) |
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) |
| Phil Hope MP |
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) |
| Phil Hope MP |
Home Office (HO) |
| Fiona Mactaggart MP |
Trades Union Congress (TUC) |
| Leslie Manasseh |
Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) |
| Trevor Phillips |
CRE |
| Brenda Stern |
Chair, Ethnic Minority Stakeholder Group |
| Nahid Majid |
DWP |
| Michael Hewson |
DWP |
| Afsana Shukur |
DWP/National Employment Panel (NEP) |
| Cay Stratton |
DWP |
| Sarah Kissack |
DWP |
| Lucy Williams |
ODPM |
| Shelagh Prosser |
DTI |
| Janice Munday |
HO |
| Matthew West |
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) |
| Inderjit Dehal |
HMT |
| Nicholas Holgate |
HMT |
Apologies
Apologies were received from Stephen Twigg MP, DfES; Nigel Griffiths MP, DTI; Neil Bentley, Confederation of British Industry (CBI); Susan Anderson (CBI) and Mark Carroll HO.
Item 1: Welcome and Introduction
The Chair welcomed all to the Task Force meeting, particularly Cay Stratton from the National Employment Panel, Alison Colvine from the Scottish Executive, and Shamit Saggar who led on the production of the Strategy Unit report.
Item 2: Minutes and Action Points
The Task Force agreed the minutes of the last Task Force meeting, and noted that all but two of the actions from the last meeting had been cleared. It was agreed that an update on both the Stakeholder Group and Procurement would take place at the next meeting on 19 January 2005.
Item 3: Presentation on Annual Report
The Chair was pleased to announce that the final draft of the Task Force Year One Report had been circulated for clearance. She explained that the report demonstrates how Task Force can go beyond the requirements of the Strategy Unit report, and make further progress towards their long-term objectives.
She emphasised that the report is the product of a considerable amount of joint working and discussion between officials of each Task Force department, and duly thanked everyone for their hard work. She also thanked Trevor Phillips, Leslie Manasseh, Neil Bentley, and Nahid Majid for their valuable contributions.
The Chair asked Ministers if they could approve the report as soon as possible, so it could be sent to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Productivity, and Competitiveness (EAPC) for clearance. (Action Point 1).
She introduced Afsana Shukur who made a presentation on the key findings of the Year One Report, with input from Sarah Kissack (DWP official) and Shamit Saggar (one of the authors of the Strategy Unit report).
You can download a copy of the presentation here 
(PDF: 183KB, Pages: 20).
There was some discussion both during and after the presentation. Jane Kennedy emphasised there was the need to challenge DWP on how much Jobcentre Plus is doing for ethnic minorities and said they needed to make more inroads. She added that in Bradford, Fair Cities and BoND are still at the prototype stage and are a long way from policies driving through changes on the ground. She went on to say that employers are not using Jobcentre Plus enough to promote vacancies. This issue is being taken forward with work being done by the Cabinet Office.
Nahid Majid said the strategy in place to develop deprived neighbourhoods
needed to be questioned, in particular making sure that funds related to
the proposed Olympics development site at Thames Gateway will ensure jobs
for local people, and will support the sustainable communities agenda.
Trevor Philips said that we need to target public sector bodies who are bound
by Local Authority duty in terms of Procurement.
The Chair thanked Afsana for the presentation and commented that it was a useful refresher for why the Task Force is in existence.
Item 4: Strategy Paper – way forward
The Chair highlighted the fact that Task Force has provided an effective governance framework for delivering its recommendations, but that the group recognised and agreed the need to go beyond the Strategy Unit recommendations. The strategy paper set out how the Task Force can help embed the aims into wider departmental strategies.
Afsana Shukur made a presentation on the key points of the strategy paper. The presentation is included with annex A.
Following the presentation Phil Hope reiterated that the Task Force needs to go beyond the recommendations, but felt that ODPM required clarity on what they were expected to do, without being prescriptive.
The Chair commented that the skills agenda is an area that should be pursued, as lack of skills contribute to poor work outcomes and act as a barrier to social inclusion.
Following the discussion it was clear that there was no real agreement on how to move forward with the strategy presented at the meeting. Jane Kennedy suggested that departments should work together at official level before the next meeting, to agree tangible outcomes and make progress on the way forward for the Task Force. (Action point 2)
Item 5: Key Indicators
The Chair stated that key statistical indicators have been agreed for 14 of the 28 Strategy Unit recommendations. All present at the meeting agreed to sign off these indicators. She invited a general discussion between members to make a decision on whether or not there should be further pursuit of the remaining indicators.
The main point for discussion was the need to know more about the key indicators, as the majority felt that the requirements from each department were unclear. Inderjit Dehal confirmed that DfES have agreed a single outcome for seven of the recommendations and that this is how they intended to take work forward.
There was no formal agreement on the key statistical indicators in their present format. The Chair said that by the time of the next Task Force the indicators should be presented in a simple and straight forward way so all members are clear on the direction they need to take, to measure any impact that is made. The Chair proposed that officials develop the indicators alongside the work to be done on developing future policies. (Action Point 3).
Item 6: One Year On Event
Afsana confirmed that the event to mark the publication of the First Yearly Progress report of the Task Force will be held on 23rd November 2004 from 9am till 11am in the Gladstone Library at the Thistle Hotel, 1 Whitehall Place. The DWP Secretary of State, Alan Johnson will be making the keynote speech. TUC and CBI will be launching their joint Race Equality strategy. The purpose of the event is to highlight the progress Task Force has made so far and to engage employers, encouraging working in partnership with the Government. Jane Kennedy added that all ministers will take part in a Q&A session, taking questions from the invited audience.
Item 7: Any other business
The next three Task Force meetings were agreed as follows:
19th January 2005
17th March 2005
21st June 2005
Close
Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force Meeting
28 October 2004, 15.00-16.30, Room 149, Richmond House
Action Points
| Action |
Responsible |
Deadline |
Status |
| Ministers to approve the First Yearly Progress Report | All Task Force ministers | Cleared | |
| Departments should work together at official level before the next meeting, to agree tangible outcomes and make progress on the way forward for the Task Force | All key officials from each Task Force department | 19th January 2005, next Task Force meeting | Meeting arranged for 9th December 04 |
| Officials develop the key statistical indicators, clarifying what is required by each Task Force department alongside work on future policies | All key officials from each Task Force department | 19th January 2005, next Task Force meeting | Meeting arranged for 9th December 04 |