Ethnic monitoring and the duty

The race equality duty requires public authorities to monitor their functions and policies for any adverse impact on race equality.  They are also required to assess the likely impact of any proposed policies on the promotion of race equality.  This means that they will have to develop and adopt ethnic monitoring systems for the work they carry out to meet their legal responsibilities. 

Many public authorities are already carrying out ethnic monitoring of their policies, and we recommend that you can adapt your existing systems to record ethnicity to achieve race equality outcomes.  

Note: This page is intended as a general overview of public authorities' obligation to carry out ethnic monitoring of their policies  as part of the statutory duty to promote race equality imposed under the Race Relations Act. More detailed guidance, including information about ethnic record keeping and ethnic monitoring categories for England, Wales and Scotland, is available from the Good Practice section of this website and also from our publication 'Ethnic Monitoring: A guide for public authorities' (please see the Downloads section of this page). 

Top of this page

Monitoring policy and service delivery

Public authorities bound by the specific duties are required to monitor all their functions and policies that are relevant to the general duty.

The CRE's statutory code of practice defines functions as the full range of a public authority’s duties and powers. It defines policies as the formal and informal decisions a public authority makes to carry out its duties and use its powers. 

The specific duties came into full effect on 31st May 2002 in England and Wales, and 30th November 2002 in Scotland.  Most public authorities should have now identified, and put in place the monitoring systems, for the main areas of their service delivery.  Public authorities are also required to publish the results of the monitoring annually.  By now, most public authorities should have made significant progress in monitoring, and taking action to address the results of the monitoring. 

Monitoring is not just an end in itself, or just a paper exercise.  Public authorities should be developing and refining the outcomes they wish to achieve in their service delivery areas and using their monitoring to measure the progress they are making in meeting these goals and targets. 

Top of this page

Monitoring employment information

Most public authorities bound by the general duty also have a specific duty to promote race equality as employers.

If you are one of these authorities, the duty says that you have to monitor, by their ethnic groups, all your employees, and all applicants for jobs, promotion and training.

If you employ more than 150 people, you also have to monitor the number of employees from each ethnic group who:

• receive training;
• benefit (or suffer disadvantage) as a result of performance assessments;
• are involved in grievances;
• have disciplinary action taken against them; and
• end employment with the authority.

We strongly advise you to monitor other aspects of the employment process as well. This will help you to meet the employment duty more effectively and to meet the general duty and other specific duties.

For example, if you want to assess the impact of your selection policy and procedures, information about the number of job applicants will not be enough. You will also need to know how many applicants from each ethnic group succeed and how many do not, at each stage of the selection process.

Top of this page

Educational institutions

Educational institutions bound by the general duty also have specific duties, as follows.

• Schools in England and Wales must assess the impact of all their policies on pupils, staff, and parents from different racial groups. They must also monitor the way their policies work. The duty expects schools to place special emphasis here on pupils’ attainment levels.  The duties in Scotland are different, and the main responsibility for meeting these is with the education authority.  Details of the duties in both England and Wales, and Scotland are outlined below. 
• Further and higher education institutions must assess the impact of all their policies on students and staff. They must also monitor, by racial group, student admissions and progress, and staff recruitment and career development.
• Local education authorities in England and Wales, and education authorities in Scotland, also have specific duties in their role as an employer.  Further details about these duties are available from the Links section of this page.
• Further and higher education institutions also specific duties to monitor in their role as an employer. See the Links section of this page.  

Top of this page

Publishing the results of monitoring

Public authorities bound by the specific duties are also required to make the results of their monitoring publicly available.  The section on meeting the publishing duty gives further information about this. 

• Publishing results

Top of this page

Private sector organisations

Equal opportunities policies, by themselves, will not bring about racial equality. Organisations must have a system for checking whether their policies are being carried out and whether they are working.

Although it is not obligatory under the Race Relations Act for private sector organisations to keep ethnic records, without them it would be difficult to establish the nature or extent of any inequality, the areas where action is most needed, and whether measures aimed at reducing inequality are succeeding. Without ethnic records it is virtually impossible to know whether or not people are being racially discriminated against.

The most reliable and efficient way of monitoring the effectiveness of a basic equal opportunities policy is to carry out regular analyses of the workforce and job applicants, by ethnic origin.

Top of this page