Policy paper

Inclusive Britain: summary of recommendations and actions

Published 17 March 2022

Presented to Parliament by the Minister of State for Equalities by Command of Her Majesty, March 2022
Command paper number: CP 625
ISBN: 978-1-5286-3184-6
© Crown copyright 2022

This page summarises:

• the recommendations made by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities
• the actions proposed by the government in its response, Inclusive Britain

Build trust

Recommendation 1a: Challenge racist and discriminatory actions

Fund the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to use its compliance, enforcement and litigation powers to challenge policies or practices that either cause significant and unjust racial disadvantage, or arise from racial discrimination.

Action 1

To enable the EHRC to increase its vital work in tackling race discrimination and disadvantage, the Cabinet Office will invest in EHRC enforcement activity to challenge race discrimination through investigations and supporting individual cases.

To improve good practice in equality law across Britain, the EHRC will also support a wider range of organisations to comply with equality law and develop policies and processes that support equality of opportunity for all.

Recommendation 1b: Challenge racist and discriminatory actions

The government should consider the complex issue of online abuse as a public policy priority.

Action 2

To clamp down on racist abuse online, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office will introduce the world-leading Online Safety Bill as soon as possible. Companies that fail to comply with their legal duties in the Bill could face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their qualifying annual global turnover, or business disruption measures.

Action 3

To improve our understanding of online harms, the Race Disparity Unit (RDU) will engage with service providers, international organisations and experts to better measure and monitor online abuse. This programme of work will also consider how specific events, such as high-profile football matches, can act as instigators for online abuse.

Action 4

To improve online transparency, RDU will lead a review into online misinformation to better understand how different groups are accessing and interpreting information online. The review will provide a series of data and policy recommendations to strengthen the government’s understanding and ability to tackle online abuse.

Recommendation 2: Review the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspection process

Review the CQC’s approach to including disparities in the experiences, progression and disciplinary actions taken against ethnic minority staff in their inspections of healthcare providers.

Action 18

As part of its new assessment framework, and to ensure that healthcare providers are held to account for why ethnic disparities exist in their workforce, the CQC will be assessing how providers are addressing the experiences, progression and disciplinary actions in respect of ethnic minority staff in their workforce. Once the CQC has evaluated how this new framework has been implemented over 2022/23, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will carefully consider whether the concerns raised in the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’ report have been addressed.

Recommendation 3: Improve the transparency and use of artificial intelligence

Issue guidance that clarifies how to apply the Equality Act to algorithmic decision-making and require transparency for public sector bodies when such technology is applied to decision making concerning individuals.

Action 72

To address the potential risks and opportunities presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the Office for AI will develop our national position on governing and regulating AI, and set this out in a white paper in 2022. This will include how to address potential racial bias in algorithmic decision-making.

Action 73

To ensure technological advances do not have a disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups, the EHRC will advise on the safeguards needed and issue guidance that explains how to apply the Equality Act to algorithmic decision-making.

Action 74

To enhance transparency and trust, the Central Digital and Data Office and the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation published an algorithmic transparency standard for the public sector. This will be piloted by several public sector organisations before formal endorsement in 2023. The move makes the UK one of the first countries in the world to develop a national algorithmic transparency standard.

Recommendation 4: Bridge divides and create partnerships between the police and communities

Develop a minimum standard framework for independently-chaired community ‘Safeguarding Trust’ groups that scrutinise and problem-solve alongside policing, and independently inspect forces against this minimum standard.

Action 10

The police need the powers to tackle crime - but there also needs to be effective local scrutiny of these powers in order to enhance trust and strengthen relations between police and communities. The Home Office, with policing partners including Police and Crime Commissioners, will develop by summer 2023 a new, national framework for how the use of police powers - including stop and search and use of force - are scrutinised at a local level. This framework will ensure that local scrutiny panels are independently-led, reflect the diversity of the areas they represent and give police officers the confidence to use their powers with the backing of local communities.

Recommendation 5: Improve training to provide police officers with practical skills to interact with communities

Develop a strategy to improve the efficacy and implementation of stop and search, and de-escalation training ensuring a consistent approach is taken by all police force areas.

Action 11

To tackle serious violent crime, which disproportionately affects some ethnic minority groups, the Home Office is bringing into force the Serious Violence Duty which will require local authorities, the police, criminal justice agencies, health authorities and others to work together to understand why violent crime is taking place in their area, and then to formulate and implement a strategy for tackling these drivers of serious violence.

Action 12

To protect the public and police officers and to give communities confidence that they are being policed fairly, the Home Office will support the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council by autumn 2024 to review and deliver any necessary improvements to police officer training in de-escalation skills and conflict management in everyday police-citizen encounters, such as use of stop and search and use of force powers.

Action 14

To give greater clarity and context to stop and search data, and reassure the public about its use, the RDU will work with the Home Office, Office for Statistics Regulation and Office for National Statistics (ONS) to improve the way this data is reported and to enable more accurate comparisons to be made between different police force areas.

Action 15

The Home Office and RDU will work with policing partners and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to consider a range of metrics for stop and search rates in order to identify and, where necessary, challenge disparities at police force area level. To be clear, a higher rate should not automatically be regarded as a problem, but the reasons should be transparent and explicable to local communities.

Promote fairness

Recommendation 6: Replicate the factors of educational success for all communities

Invest in meaningful and substantial research to understand and replicate the underlying factors that drive success of high performing groups.

Action 29

To drive up levels of attainment for under-performing ethnic groups, the Department for Education (DfE) will carry out a programme of analysis in early 2022 to understand pupil attainment and investigate whether there are any specific findings and implications for different ethnic groups to tackle disparities.

Action 30

The DfE and the RDU will investigate the strategies used by the multi-academy trusts who are most successful at bridging achievement gaps for different ethnic groups and raising overall life chances. The lessons learnt will be published in 2022 and will help drive up standards for all pupils.

Action 31

The DfE will investigate the publication of additional data on the academic performance of ethnic groups alongside other critical factors relating to social mobility and progress at school level, in post-18 education and employment after education by the end of 2022.

Action 32

The DfE will bring forward an ambitious schools white paper in spring 2022 which will set out a long-term vision for a stronger schools system. There will be a focus on improving the literacy and numeracy outcomes of those not meeting expected standards because this is one of the most important factors for children’s life chances. Disadvantaged pupils are overrepresented in the cohort not meeting expected standards; a core pillar of the white paper will be providing targeted support for those who need it most, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. We will also look at ways we can target interventions in areas and schools of entrenched underperformance.

Recommendation 7: Invest in proven interventions through better targeted funding

Systematically target disparities in education outcomes between disadvantaged pupils and their peers through funding, considering geographical variation, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status.

Action 33

In order to tackle disparities in educational outcomes for disadvantaged groups and to ensure that funding streams sufficiently address pupil needs, from September 2021 the DfE has required all schools to publish their strategies for spending money allocated for disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium and the recovery premium. The funding grant conditions require these strategies to be built around well-evidenced approaches, such as classroom practice that has consistently demonstrated accelerated pupil progress. DfE will not have ethnicity-based funding streams unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Action 34

To maximise the benefits of the pupil premium for disadvantaged pupils, DfE amended the pupil premium conditions of grant for the 2021-2022 academic year to require all schools to use their funding on evidence-based approaches. To the extent possible, DfE will investigate the scale of these benefits.

Recommendation 8: Advance fairness in the workplace

Develop resources and evidence-based approaches of what works to advance fairness in the workplace, and which are readily available to employers.

Action 69

To tackle bias and ensure fairness in the workplace, by spring 2023 the Equality Hub will create an ‘Inclusion at Work Panel’. Made up of a panel of academics and practitioners in business it will develop and disseminate effective resources to help employers drive fairness across organisations. This will go beyond just race and ethnicity to identify actions to promote fairness for all in the workplace and will include a programme of research and workplace trials to provide a robust evidence base and root out poor quality training.

The panel will be supported by the Government Campus, specifically the new Leadership College for Government, to ensure the Government Curriculum defines effective leadership and management standards and products. The UK Civil Service and public sector employers will lead by example in adopting evidence-based practices and trialling new approaches.

Action 70

To support employers and industry sectors to create opportunity for groups that are underrepresented in their workforce, the Government Equalities Office will create new updated guidance on positive action by December 2022.

Action 71

Using evidence from the Inclusion at work Panel, and building on the curriculum standards underpinning the Government Campus, and Leadership College within it, the government will develop a new scheme for employers, working with stakeholders in business, civil society and academia, to provide an evidenced framework for improving race equality and progression in the workplace. Organisations will be able to sign-up to the scheme voluntarily, to be live by autumn 2023.

Recommendation 9: Investigate what causes existing ethnic pay disparities

Require publication of a diagnosis and action plan for organisations who choose to publish ethnicity pay figures. These should set out the reasons why any disparities exist and what will be done to address them.

Action 16

We will address the challenges with ethnicity pay gap reporting to support employers who want to demonstrate and drive greater fairness in the workplace.

The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will publish guidance to employers on voluntary ethnicity pay reporting in summer 2022. This guidance, which will include case studies of those companies who are already reporting, will give employers the tools to understand and tackle pay gaps within their organisations and build trust with employees.

Recommendation 10: Improve understanding of the ethnicity pay gap in NHS England

Undertake a strategic review of the causes of disparate pay across NHS England and spell out the measures that might meaningfully address any disparities.

Action 17

To close the gap in pay between different ethnic groups working within NHS England, we will commission a new Ethnicity Pay Gap research project. The project will consider the scale and causes of the ethnicity pay gap across the NHS and produce actionable recommendations on how to reduce it.

Recommendation 11: Establish an Office for Health Disparities

Establish a new office to properly target health disparities in the UK, focusing on research, communications and expertise to reduce health inequalities across all groups

Action 19

To reduce the gap in health outcomes and tackle current health disparities, DHSC will publish a new strategy in a health disparities white paper for England later in 2022.

Action 20

To address concerns about the way medical devices and technologies are designed and used, and their impact on ethnic minority patients’ diagnosis and treatment, the Department for Health and Social Care will consider carefully the findings of Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead’s review when this reports in 2023.

Action 21

To improve life expectancy across all groups and to reduce health inequalities, DHSC established the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in October 2021. The OHID is leading cross-government work to address the causes of health inequalities (such as deprivation, tobacco, alcohol, diet and physical inactivity) which often disproportionately affect certain ethnic groups, and on the health disparities white paper. OHID’s mission is to improve and level up the health of the nation.

Action 22

To improve maternal health outcomes for ethnic minority women, DHSC, the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and NHS England and NHS Improvement will consider and support evidence-based interventions to address the current disparities in outcomes through the Maternity Disparities Taskforce.

Action 23

To reduce the health disparities we have seen during the pandemic, the government will implement the package of recommendations from the Minister for Equalities’ final COVID-19 disparities report, published on 3 December 2021.

Action 24

To build confidence in future vaccination schemes and other health interventions, the National Institute for Health Research and the NHS Race and Health Observatory will seek to increase ethnic minority participation in clinical trials and research through methods such as promoting the INCLUDE Ethnicity Framework.

Recommendation 12: Prevent harm, reduce crime and divert young people away from the criminal justice system

Develop an evidence-based pilot that diverts offences of low-level Class B drug possession into public health services.

Action 41

To tackle the disproportionate criminalisation of young adults, who are often from ethnic minority and/or deprived backgrounds, we have begun to pilot a number of drug diversion schemes through Project ADDER which have the long-term potential to transform the way we tackle drug-related crime and engagement with youth at risk. We have extended Project ADDER to 8 additional local authority areas, as announced in July 2021. We will also explore ongoing current drug diversion schemes and share what works with other areas.

Action 42

To ensure that more people using illegal drugs receive a relevant and proportionate consequence, the Home Office will support a number of police forces with £9 million in funding to introduce, or expand, out of court disposal schemes from summer 2022.

Recommendation 13: Build social and cultural capital – enrichment for all

Phase in an extended school day prioritising disadvantaged areas to provide pupils with the opportunity to engage in physical and cultural activities that enrich lives and build social and cultural capital.

Action 61

To help all pupils, but especially the most disadvantaged who are more likely to have fallen further behind in their studies during the pandemic, the DfE will invest almost £5 billion to support recovery for children and young people, with extra help for those who need it most. We are investing over £800 million across the next three academic years to fund 40 additional learning hours for 16 to 19 year olds – the equivalent of one extra hour per week in school or college.

Recommendation 14: Increase legitimacy and accountability of stop and search through body-worn video

Increased scrutiny of body-worn video footage of stop and search encounters, with senior officer involvement required in cases where interactions are of concern and need improvement.

Action 13: To improve transparency and promote uptake, the Home Office will identify and seek to remove unnecessary barriers that prevent increased use of body-worn video (BWV) and will encourage policing bodies to share guidance and best practice on the use of BWV.

The Home Office, with policing partners, will also explore how best to facilitate the sharing of BWV footage with local scrutiny panels, in order to improve the scrutiny of police decision-making and improve the understanding of the legitimate police use of powers such as stop and search. This will feed into the new framework for scrutinising use of police powers that will be developed by summer 2023.

Create agency

Recommendation 15: Empower pupils to make more informed choices to fulfil their future potential

Issue guidance to higher education institutions to help reduce disparities in applications at an earlier stage and monitored for effectiveness.

Action 43

To empower pupils to make more informed choices about their studies, the DfE will ensure that Higher Education Institutions support disadvantaged students before they apply for university places.

Action 44

The DfE will work with UCAS and other sector groups to make available both advertised and actual entry requirements for courses, including historic entry grades so that disadvantaged students have the information they need to apply to university on a fair playing field.

Action 45

Higher education providers will help schools drive up standards so that disadvantaged students obtain better qualifications, have more options, and can choose an ambitious path that is right for them.

Action 46

Higher education providers will revise and resubmit their Access and Participation plans with a new focus on delivering real social mobility, ensuring students are able to make the right choices, accessing and succeeding on high quality courses, which are valued by employers and lead to good graduate employment.

Action 47

To improve careers guidance for all pupils in state-funded secondary education, the DfE will extend the current statutory duty on schools to secure independent careers guidance to pupils throughout their secondary education.

Action 50

To help high-achieving, disadvantaged students to reach their full potential whilst studying in higher education, including degree courses or apprenticeships, the DfE will invest up to £75 million to deliver a state scholarship programme.

Action 51

To clamp down on low quality courses, the Office for Students (OfS) will set minimum acceptable standards for student outcomes and work to ensure universities rewrite their Access and Participation Plans to include more focused and transparent targets.

Action 52

The government is consulting on means to incentivise high quality provision and ensure all students enter pathways on which they can excel and achieve the best possible outcomes, including exploring the case for low-level minimum eligibility requirements to access higher education student finance and the possible case for proportionate student number controls.

Action 53

To help disadvantaged students to choose the right courses for them and to boost their employment prospects, the Social Mobility Commission will seek to improve the information available to students about the labour market value of qualifications and, where possible, the impact of those qualifications on social mobility.

Recommendation 16: Open up access to apprenticeships

Create a targeted apprenticeships campaign to inform young people facing discrimination or disadvantage of the full range of career pathways open to them and encourage them to take up apprenticeships in growth sectors.

Action 48

To increase the numbers of young ethnic minorities in apprenticeships, the DfE is, since November 2021, working with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and partner bodies and employers to engage directly with young people across the country to promote apprenticeships. This will use a range of mechanisms to attract more ethnic minority starts identified in the Commission’s report, such as events in schools with strong minority representation, relatable role models, employer testimonies, data on potential earnings and career progression. It will also explore the impact of factors that influence a young persons’ career choices.

Action 49

In January DfE launched a major communications campaign ‘Get the Jump: Skills for Life’, a new integrated communication and engagement campaign that will target young people aged 14-19 about the full range of options available to them post-16 and post-18. It will help to tackle disparities by featuring a diverse range of young people in the campaign imagery, through case studies, influencers and through media targeting. The DfE will measure and publish participation levels of people from ethnic minorities, including a breakdown by age. This will allow us to track the progress of apprenticeship uptake by ethnic minorities and other under-represented groups in particular sectors.

Recommendation 17: Encourage innovation

Pilot a new enterprise programme to nurture talent and encourage innovation, targeted at aspiring entrepreneurs from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds across the UK.

Action 56

To equip entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds with the skills they need to build successful businesses, BEIS is supporting HSBC to develop and launch its pilot for a competition-based, entrepreneur support programme in spring 2022. The programme, which will be run in partnership with UK universities, will equip entrepreneurs with the skills they need for years to come.

Recommendation 18: Improve safety and support for children at risk

Develop a digital solution to signpost and refer children and young people at risk of, or already experiencing criminal exploitation, to local organisations who can provide support.

The government did not accept the Commission’s recommendation for a new digital solution. We believe there are already initiatives which fulfil this function provided by other stakeholders. For example, to support meaningful conversations between young people and the police, the National Police Chiefs Council launched the @YourPolice.UK Instagram account in 2019 for reporting crimes more easily and for accessing bespoke information and advice. The Youth Justice Board is also providing targeted funding to a number of local authorities and youth offending teams to drive system improvements and outcomes for children through the ‘Pathfinder’ activities programme, a number of which are focussed on serious violence, county lines and exploitation.

Recommendation 19: Undertake a ‘support for families’ review

Undertake a review to investigate and take action to address the underlying issues facing families. This Commission has identified this as a significant contributing factor to the experience of disparities.

Action 25

The Children’s Commissioner for England will commence a review in April 2022 to improve the way public services understand the needs of children and families, so every child has the best start in life and the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Recommendation 20: Making of modern Britain: teaching an inclusive curriculum

Produce high-quality teaching resources, through independent experts, to tell the multiple, nuanced stories of the contributions made by different groups that have made this country the one it is today.

Action 57

To help pupils understand the intertwined nature of British and global history, and their own place within it, the DfE will work with history curriculum experts, historians and school leaders to develop a Model History curriculum by 2024 that will stand as an exemplar for a knowledge-rich, coherent approach to the teaching of history.

The Model History Curriculum will support high-quality teaching and help teachers and schools to develop their own school curriculum fully using the flexibility and freedom of the history national curriculum and the breadth and depth of content it includes. The development of model, knowledge-rich curriculums continues the path of reform the government started in 2010.

Action 58

The DfE will actively seek out and signpost to schools suggested high-quality resources to support teaching all-year round on black history in readiness for Black History Month October 2022. This will help support schools to share the multiple, nuanced stories of the contributions made by different groups that have made this country the one it is today.

Action 59

To equip teachers to make ethical decisions and deliver high-quality education, the DfE will embed new reforms to transform the training and support teachers and school leaders receive at every stage of their career. These measures include national roll-out of the new Early Career Framework and reformed National Professional Qualifications from September 2021.

Achieve inclusivity

Recommendation 21: Create police workforces that represent the communities they serve

Introduce a local residency requirement for recruitment to each police force area, with the College of Policing developing guidance to support implementation.

Action 64

To help police forces become more representative of their local communities, and benefit from local knowledge and experience, the Home Office, working with the College of Policing, will consider with individual forces measures to ensure that new recruits have a better understanding of the areas and the people they serve, including the feasibility of a local residency requirement where appropriate.

Recommendation 22: Equip the police service to serve the needs of their local communities

Design and evaluate recruitment pilots that match candidates’ life skills with the needs of the communities they serve in their local areas.

Action 65

To ensure that the recruitment processes identify and select officers who are reflective of the needs of local communities, the Metropolitan Police Service, working with the College of Policing, is considering additional methods for assessing candidates’ understanding of those needs and will announce its plans later in 2022. Changes would be delivered via a pilot that will be evaluated by the College, with a view to applying learning to its ongoing development of the assessment process.

Recommendation 23: Use data in a responsible and informed way

Develop and publish a set of ethnicity data standards to improve understanding and information gathering, reducing the opportunity for misunderstanding and misuse.

Action 6

To ensure more responsible and accurate reporting on race and ethnicity, the RDU will by the end of 2022 consult on new standards for government departments and other public bodies on how to record, understand and communicate ethnicity data.

Action 7

The RDU will lead work to:

• engage with people from different ethnic groups to better understand the language and terminology that they identify with
• review how media coverage of race and ethnicity issues impact the communities being covered.
• develop recommendations which will encourage responsible and accurate reporting on race issues by June 2023

Recommendation 24: Disaggregate the term ‘BAME’

Stop using aggregated and unhelpful terms such as ‘BAME’, to better focus on understanding disparities and outcomes for specific ethnic groups.

Action 5

To communicate more effectively on racial issues and to avoid lumping together different ethnic minority groups, the government has stopped using the term ‘BAME’ in its own communications and will encourage other public sector bodies to do the same.

Action 8

To improve the presentation and to assist the interpretation of data on ethnic disparities, the RDU will consult by summer 2022 on a set of proposals to reform the Ethnicity facts and figures website, with a view to maintaining a smaller range of the most useful data sets.

Beyond the Commission’s recommendations

Migration outcomes

Action 9

To identify and fill evidence gaps about the social mobility, skill and role mismatching and health outcomes of immigrants, the RDU will lead a new, cross-government analytical work programme with input from external experts in 2022. This will include analysis of the structural issues that immigrants may face in the UK, and understanding the lessons that the government has learned about policy making in this area.

Improve adoption for disadvantaged children

Action 26

To increase the number of ethnic minority children who are adopted, and to reduce the time they have to wait to be adopted, the DfE, together with regional adoption agencies, will work to launch a new drive to match children with adoptive families. DfE will work to ensure that potential adopters are not discouraged to apply because of their ethnicity.

Action 27

In line with commitments in the adoption strategy, the DfE will start to modernise data collection and information sharing so that regional adoption agency leaders have access to data which can be used to speed up matching of ethnic minority children with new adoptive families.

Action 28

To improve the existing evidence base, the RDU will work with the DfE and other stakeholders to develop and publish, in 2022, a strategy to improve the quality and availability of ethnicity data and evidence about looked after children and their routes out of care.

Alternative provision in education

Action 35

The DfE will take action to improve the quality of education outside mainstream schools. These proposals are part of the forthcoming schools white paper and the SEND (special educational needs and disability) review and measures will be announced in 2022 to deliver significantly improved outcomes for children and young people at risk of being excluded from school or who are in Alternative Provision.

Action 36

The DfE will consult on and publish new and improved guidance on behaviour in schools and on suspensions and permanent exclusions in 2022. Both sets of guidance will help local leaders identify and address any disparities that might exist within suspension and permanent exclusion rates.

Action 37

The DfE will launch a £30 million, 3-year programme to set up new SAFE (Support, Attend, Fulfil and Exceed) taskforces led by mainstream schools to deliver evidence-based interventions for those most at risk of becoming involved in serious violent crime. These will run in 10 serious violence hotspots from early 2022 targeted at young people at risk of dropping out of school: reducing truancy, improving behaviour and reducing the risk of NEET (those not in education, employment or training).

Action 38

DfE will invest £15 million in a 2 year-programme to pilot the impact of co-locating full-time specialists in Alternative Provision in the top 22 serious violence hotspots.

Community-led rehabilitation

Action 39

To enable more grassroots, ethnic minority-led and specialist, voluntary or community sector organisations to provide rehabilitative services, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) launched a new Stewardship Fund for 2021/22. We will also provide advice and support to help these organisations bid for funding and following an evaluation of the impact of the stewardship fund we will assess if funding provision can be made on a longer-term basis.

Advice for young people in police custody

Action 40

To ensure that ethnic minorities and others receive the legal advice they need when in police custody, the MoJ will support a number of police forces to trial the effect of an automatic ‘opt-in’ to receive independent advice over 2022 and to build trust to see if this reduces disparities. This will assess whether better advice could lead to improved outcomes following arrest, such as better protection of vulnerable individuals, and increased take up of out of court disposals.

Progression out of low pay

Action 54

To unleash people’s potential, DWP will roll out a new in-work support offer to every Jobcentre from April 2022. The new programme will appoint 37 new specialist Progression Champions to deliver specialist support to Jobcentres and develop tailored progression plans to support working claimants to climb the career ladder.

Ethnicity data collection

Action 55

BEIS will work with Code signatories and their trade associations to pilot data collection on the ethnicity of entrepreneurs applying for finance. This pilot will inform future options for data collection and follow-up actions designed to improve access to finance for ethnic minority entrepreneurs.

Inclusive school hair and uniform policy

Action 60

The DfE will, in collaboration with the Equality Hub, work with leading schools to help them create a resource on pupil hairstyles and uniform policy. This will showcase best practice in uniform policy specific to the diversity of acceptable hairstyles in school to avoid unfair treatment of ethnic minority children whose hair type may not be like the majority.

Guidance on Civil Service diversity and inclusion

Action 62

We will develop refreshed guidance on Civil Service diversity and inclusion, with clear advice on impartiality in language and practice.

Professional skills to benefit local communities

Action 63

The DfE will encourage governing bodies to be more reflective of the school communities they serve and will recommend that schools collect and publish board diversity data at a local level. The DfE will also update the Further Education Governance Guide in spring 2022 to include how to remove barriers to representation, widen the pool of potential volunteers and promote inclusivity.

Addressing racial discrimination and abuse of police officers

Action 66

To protect police officers and others when exercising their functions, we will double the maximum penalty for common assault or battery committed against an emergency worker from 12 months to 2 years’ imprisonment.

Improving judicial diversity

Action 67

To broaden the diversity of the judiciary, we will work with the Judicial Diversity Forum to increase the pool of applicants as well as continuing to scrutinise recruitment processes to ensure the very best talent is promoted through the professions and on to the bench. This includes delivering MoJ’s commitments set out in the 2022 action plan.

Action 68

To broaden the diversity of the magistracy, the MoJ is investing over £1 million this financial year to support the recruitment of new and diverse magistrates, and launched a revised, streamlined recruitment process and inclusive recruitment campaign earlier this year. The new process will enable MoJ to better monitor recruitment information, understand any differences in attraction and success rates between ethnic groups and to identify action to address any issues highlighted by this data. An evaluation of this process will be conducted in 2022.