Race equality in 2021; a New Year Resolution It’s around this time of year, or last week for the well organised among us, that we take stock of our lives, resolve to do better and set ourselves a challenge. The practice of making a resolution at the start of the year dates back to the Romans, who made a promise to the god Janus. Nowadays we resolve to do something new or something better, to enhance our lives or the lives of others (as we all know the whole point of a diet or fitness resolution is to see how [...]

Inequality is seriously bad for the economy’s health In a recent webinar on the Ethnicity Pay Gap, hosted by the Housing Diversity Network, research from the ONS suggested that black employees under the age of 30 suffered significantly less inequality than those over 30. So the logical conclusion is that too few black employees are progressing to senior positions, in both the public and private sectors. But other than the obvious point of fairness, why else is this inequality such a problem? Well, studies on both sides of the Atlantic claim it has cost the economies in the US and [...]

Coming out of COVID: Women’s job prospects under threat It may seem too early to be talking of a future beyond COVID-19, but vaccine news over the past couple of weeks and the arrival of the first consignment from Pfizer Biontech in the UK is cause for real optimism.  And the big day arrived yesterday with the first vaccinations in the UK, 90 year-old Margaret Keenan receiving the first historic jab closely followed by… William Shakespeare! Well with that good news, 2021 is almost upon us and, as we wave a cheery farewell to the year of the pandemic, it’s [...]

HDN links up with Liverpool CRCA The Housing Diversity Network (HDN) is delighted to announce a new collaboration with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. HDN has been commissioned by the Combined Authority to conduct an equality impact assessment of its current policies in relation to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. This will enable the two like-minded organisations to produce a comprehensive equality scheme which in turn will inform a proactive and good practice led equality action plan for the Combined Authority. Following a competitive tender, work starts immediately for HDN, with the Network’s Associate Consultants Yvonne Davies and Sarah Simcoe, [...]

HDN confirms Mushtaq Khan as Chief Executive The Housing Diversity Network has announced the permanent appointment of Mushtaq Khan as CEO. The move cements Mushtaq’s position at the helm of the network after his six month period as interim CEO has seen great strides in the organisation’s growth and emergence as a leading thinker in the drive to improve Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) in the housing sector and beyond. Having worked for a number of housing and regeneration organisations, as well as large metropolitan councils including Oldham and Lambeth, Mushtaq is ideally placed to help organisations to develop inclusive [...]

New study reveals how hard COVID-19 hits BAME people We have known for many difficult months that COVID-19 was never likely to be a leveller, but the most comprehensive research to date has just confirmed that people with Black or Asian heritage are at a much greater risk of testing positively for the virus, and now we know that Asian people are more likely to be admitted to intensive care. The report, published by the Lancet in EClinicalMedicine, is a wide reaching analysis of published and peer-reviewed research into how the pandemic has disproportionally affected different groups in society. The [...]

Business gives black interns that first foot on the ladder Some of the UK’s biggest employers are backing a campaign to give valuable opportunities to 10,000 black interns over the next five years. Extensive research has shown that boards with a more diverse profile perform better than those without, in terms of productivity, staff recruitment and retention; but climbing to a haughty position in the boardroom has been more difficult for black employees. The initiative will open up careers that ethnic minorities have struggled to access, with paid experience across a range of sectors which will ultimately improve their chances [...]

Free school meals can’t simply be flavour of the month While cafes, bars and restaurants have stepped forward to provide half-term meals for some of the most disadvantaged children in society, the government continues to dig its heels in over the call to provide free-school meals during holidays. Footballer Marcus Rashford spearheaded a campaign which led to a U-Turn earlier in the year but, despite increasing criticism from within Conservative ranks, Boris Johnson’s government has so far refused to budge in the Autumn half-term break. And that means the parents and carers of around 1.3m vulnerable children are going without [...]

Riverside takes real and practical steps towards race equality, by Lyn Bowker Following the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, many organisations rushed to issue public statements and make impressive corporate commitments to eradicate race inequalities. Here at Riverside, we have been quietly and steadily chipping away at our own race equality agenda since last year, looking at our systems and policies and identifying barriers to progression for our BAME colleagues and job applicants. Our work started back in the summer of 2019 when, led by our BAME staff network, Origin, we commissioned [...]

COVID-19 and Discrimination - Women ‘We’re all in it together’ was the mantra back in March when Rishi Sunak tried to bring the country together in the face of an unknown threat. The Chancellor unveiled a mammoth fiscal package to battle an unprecedented foe, designed to keep the country, its people and the economy on their feet. But our experience over the last six months has taught us that some of us are more ‘in it’ than others, as COVID-19 has turned out to be not a leveller, but a virus which can fuel inequality. In August, here at HDN, we [...]