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An article appeared on PM Daily on 20th January with a headline “No black academics in top British university roles for the third successive year”. The article was based upon figures published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and the apparent, although erroneous, conclusion in it that there were no black academics at all in top British university roles. Included in the article was comment from Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, that this was “absolutely shocking” and that he was “appalled that higher education is so deeply unrepresentative of the country”. Looking at the bald figures alone, one might indeed think that those making recruitment decisions within British higher education establishments must be inherently racist or discriminatory. But is that right?
A closer look at the figures
What was absent from the article was any statistical analysis of the data to indicate how these figures convert into percentages and how far they are more reflective of wider society.
There are a total of 201,380 staff within the Academic Staff category. 16,045 staff of those Academic Staff did not provide their ethnic background for the purposes of the HESA study. This represents around 7.8% of the Academic Staff and those people must be discounted when calculating other percentage figures.
The total number of staff making it to the top level of the academic world which is the subject of the PM Daily article (I shall refer to these people as the Senior Staff) is just 565, although 30 of those did not provide their ethnic background either, so the figure we must use is 535. Who can say what the ethnic breakdown of that population of staff is and why they chose not to provide data about their ethnicity? If half that 30 were black then the resulting % of senior staff would be not far off the national ethnic breakdown in the 2011 Census. Out of a total relevant population of less than 550 it does not take many people to cause material movement in the percentages.
HESA acknowledges in a footnote to its calculations that figures of 1 and 2 are rounded down to 0 and that all other numbers are rounded up or down to the nearest 5, which will inevitably result to some extent in skewed numbers. The Guardian notes by way of example that Baroness Valerie Amos took over as Director of Soas University of London in September 2015 and she does not feature in the statistics recorded by HESA even though she clearly makes the headline untrue. But even allowing for these variables, the fact remains that on the face of it, BME people are under-represented at senior academic levels. While 14.5% of Academic Staff who declare their ethnicity are of BME origin compared to 13% of the UK population as a whole, that drops to less than 5% in the Senior Staff category. What does this prove?
Strictly, nothing. A more insightful analysis would require a closer look at those applying for the roles and what we can learn about them. For example, who applies for the roles that are advertised? What is the ethnic breakdown of those applying? Do those applying for the roles have the qualifying criteria? What is the ethnic breakdown of those who proceed to interview and are then appointed? There are too many more interesting questions that should be considered in order to understand what the issues are before you can make any assumption that the reason that there are next to no black academics in high positions is because those giving out the jobs are discriminating, either consciously or sub-consciously.
The point is that without proper statistics in the first place and then a proper analysis of the recruitment process, it is not possible to get the full picture. Mr Lammy has form for baseless allegations of race discrimination so it is to his credit that he has not made that suggestion here (in those terms, at least)
What can employers / decision-makers do?
Employers should concentrate on ensuring a robust and fair recruitment process. This could include taking measures like a blind selection process, training decision-makers in conscious and unconscious discrimination and a job description and person specification that is objective and contains only necessary components of the job role.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Code of Practice on Employment (2011) is a statutory code that employers are obliged to follow and it contains a section on recruitment and selection and assessment. It is sensible to keep a record of application forms, CVs and supporting documentation, records of conversations and interviews and to have a set of criteria that would be applied to everyone in the interview process. That is particularly the case in jobs like this, where formal qualifications will be only one part of what gets you the job and regard must be had as well to relative intangibles around reputation and teaching, mentoring and research skills.
Try to ensure that the same people are responsible for the interviewing process in respect of each role and that questions are structured around the job role and description. If at all possible, include BME staff among the decision-makers.
Do not be afraid to give frank feedback to the unsuccessful candidate. Many a Tribunal claim has arisen as a result of the decision-maker trying to be kind and not giving a straight answer to an uncomfortable question. If there are good reasons why the candidate was unsuccessful do not be afraid to draw objective comparisons with those who went forwards in order to reinforce the decision.
