Union helps civil service agency address promotion bias

Ethnic minority staff at the Radiocommunications Agency (RA) are set to benefit from fairer promotion procedures as a result of a project in which professionals and managers' union IPMS played a key role.

Following concern that ethnic minority employees entering the RA were not getting promotion, the management set up a racial equality advisory group which produced evidence that ethnic minorities faced barriers to advancement.

The first step was to generate awareness of the problem among the Agency's 480 staff. Then management teamed up with IPMS, whose CareerPlus project had been set up to improve opportunities for black and Asian engineers. This involved identifying personal development needs and setting up support networks.

Staff member Calton Brown believes that the scheme has produced a complete culture change. "Without racial or gender awareness it is inevitable that white middle-aged men tend to promote people like themselves. Yet we were able to show that box markings for ethnic minorities were as good or better than their white counterparts. They went to interviews but they just didn't get the jobs".

Calton added that "We aren't looking for positive discrimination, just positive action to create a level playing field".

The project has also benefited from financial support from management, including providing day release and subsidies for training.

The IPMS would like to see this approach broadened out to include other government departments and agencies, and is hoping that the Ministry of Defence will join in the next project to include scientists and technologists as well as engineers.