11th January 2019 52 seconds read

The Guardian: Austerity is laying waste to progress on diversity at the top of local government

The Colour of Power, an examination into the lack of black or minority ethnic (BME) representation in the upper echelons of power in Britain, has highlighted the stark fact that there are currently no BME Chief Executive’s in England’s 50 unitary local authorities.

The Colour of Power has been an extensive research project by OBV in partnership with Green Park recruitment, and the Guardian newspaper,  which set out to explore who holds the top jobs in significant public, private and democratic institutions. It finds that of the 1,049 individuals in positions of power in theUK just 36 are BME, or 3.4% of the total.

Raj Tulsiani, chief executive of Green Park, is calling on public sector organisations to do more to deliver sustainable change: “I am convinced that central government and the public sector would like to better serve and represent the UK population but clearly its supply chain and recruitment processes are not helping to make diverse hires at board and leadership level nor build a diverse pipeline for senior roles that reflect the UK’s management population,” he points out.

 

This article was published in The Guardian on Thursday 12 October 2017. To read the full Guardian article, click here.