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Agenda item

Racial Inequalities and Unconscious Bias (19.55)

Minutes:

6.1 The death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have highlighted racial inequalities that exist across public services.  The Commission invited the Directors of the Children and Families Service (CFS) and Hackney Learning Trust (HLT) to set out the work to help identify and address racial inequalities and unconscious bias in the policies and practices of their respective departments.

 

6.2 The purpose of this item was three fold:

  • To ensure that the Commission had oversight of work to combat racial inequalities across children and young people's services;
  • To provide challenge to local strategies, plans or work that seek address racial inequalities; and 
  • To assess whether further more detailed scrutiny is necessary for any identified service areas.

 

6.3  The Cabinet member for Education, Children and Children's Social Care introduced responses from both CFS and HLT.   The Cabinet member made the following points:

  • Hackney has supported the Young Black Men Project for a number of years and this work has helped to bring change to local services.
  • In response to the death of George Floyd, Hackney has embarked on further work across the Council in both CFS and HLT.
  • Subsequent to a meeting with Headteachers, a black only space has been set up for local teachers for them to explore racial inequality issues in education. 

 

6.4 The Group Director for Children, Adults and Community Health provided an overview of the strategic work taking place across CYP services to address racial inequalities.

  • It was acknowledged that progress to tackle inequalities had been slow and that greater urgency was required;
  • There were three themes in the work to address racial inequalities across services:
  • That there was a focus on practice to make sure that this has necessary impact to address inequalities (e..g service delivery);
  • To improve the inclusivity of the workforce at pace;
  • To  improve education and awareness of racial inequalities and the urgency required to identify meaningful and impactful solutions.

 

6.5 The Director of CFS presented to the Commission (attached).  Key points from this presentation are summarised below.

  • An action plan was already in place in CFS in relation to the Black Men’s Project though this has been developed further into an Anti-Racist Action Plan. This was developed by the leadership team within CFS alongside the black leadership group. The action plan has been developed to focus on those areas which  would have the greatest impact, these included:
    • Inclusive recruitment and aspirational support to staff:
    • Anti-racist leadership and practice with children and families;
    • Promoting anti-racist practice to influence broader care support systems.
  • There was an acknowledgement that diversity in the workforce varied and that the senior leadership team was one area where improved diversity was required. A number of developments had taken place  to improve diversity across CFS which included anonymous recruitment and improved diversity on interview panels.  Additional data monitoring now takes to track disproportionality in the workforce.
  • Planned work to improve recruitment included the establishment of a black leadership group and a review of training to ensure that black staff have equal access to development opportunities, particularly those leading to leadership roles.
  • A black practitioners group was also planned.
  • Anti-racism in practice training was being provided to the whole service in the autumn and anti-racist practice standards and development tools would be developed by spring 2021;
  • A key objective within the Anti-Racist Action Plan being developed by CFS was the need to infleunce the broader care system that affects the lives of children and families e.g. through the multi-agency bodies of which it part, the services it commissions from other agencies and its engagement with young people.

 

Questions from the Commission

6.6 The presentation noted that CFS was working with the courts to ensure proportionality in decision making.  In practice, what steps had been taken?

  • Issues of racial disproportionality toward young black within the youth court is a national issue.  CFS had started conversations with the local youth court and is part of a user group for that court to provide feedback on its operation.  It is hoped to engage the court in developing trauma informed practice training sessions.  CFS were hoping to be able to introduce statements into the court about young people's experience of racism, discrimination and disadvantage to help inform decision making by the courts. It was understood that the courts were open to and wanted to engage with work to reduce racial disproportionality. 

 

6.7 What baseline data was being used to assess performance and impact of anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practice? When could this be made available for the Commission?

  • In terms of workforce data, CFS has actively collected and collated data on social workers but has now extended this to the wider workforce.
  • CFS also analysed data on young people entering and going through the social care system in terms of age, gender and ethnicity.  Poverty indicators had also been recently included.  Whilst the data was very rich, analysis was complex.  CFS was aware that children from black and other minority ethnic backgrounds were over represented within the local social care system.  Conversely, some sections of the white community were underrepresented.  CFS continued to analyse data to help develop a baseline through which to measure success.

 

6.8 In relation to the black leadership group that had recently been established, what percentage of the senior leadership group in CFS are from black or other minority ethnic groups?

  • Whilst officers were not able to give precise data at the meeting, it was acknowledged that the majority of staff in senior leadership roles in CFS were white.  Further data would be provided to the Commission.

 

6.9 In summary, the Commission agreed that whilst there had been progress to address racial inequalities across services, it had been acknowledged that progress had been slow and that this would benefit from additional, regular scrutiny. 

 

Agreed: 

  1. That CFS would provide intervention rate data for children’s social care by ethnicity to help understand any disparities in interventions and to establish baseline data.
  2. That CFS would provide data to the Commission on the ethnic background of staff in senior roles.
  3. That progress agains the Anti-Racist Action Plan is reported in the Children’s Social Care Bi-Annual Report.
  4. That a further follow up report on the progress to tackle racial inequalities is provided to the Commission within 6 months.

 

HLT

6.10 The Director of Education and officers presented to the Commission the work of HLT to address racial inequalities and improve equality in local educational settings (presentation attached). 

 

6.11 Since the death of George Floyd, HLT has taken a number of actions including contacting and reassuring all schools and pupils. 

  • HLT also held two meetings with staff to help identify what priority actions should be taken to address inequalities. 
  • A curriculum group had also been established which included representatives from local schools, and would focus its work on how racial inequalities in the curriculum might be addressed. 
  • Hackney Schools Group Board has worked with 6 schools to engage and involve parents in talking about race which has been very positive (results to be published late September).

 

6.12 Work to promote the black curriculum and promote diversity and inclusion within teaching had commenced and a dedicated officer lead had been appointed.  The purpose of the black curriculum group would encompass not only how black history was being taught, but also the degree to which black and other cultures were represented in other areas of the curriculum.  The ethos of this approach is that all children benefit from a diverse and inclusive approach to teaching and learning.  It was important that black culture was represented in the curriculum to provide positive reinforcement and empowerment to young black students but also to provide a diverse and inclusive approach to learning.

 

6.13 To provide long term change it was important to develop the racial literacy of school staff, school governors and other stakeholders.  HLT is working with local schools to ensure that their staff are racially literate and that they understand how race and culture may impact on the educational experience and outcomes of their children.  The aim of this programme was ambitious but there had been good engagement by local schools and work had already commenced, including the development of lesson plans and other resources to support teaching.

 

6.14 Having a diverse and inclusive workforce was also essential to promoting equality and HLT had:

  • Developed a recruitment tool kit for headteachers to help recruit, develop and maintain black staff;
  • Improvement plans for local schools would now encompass equality and inclusion aims;
  • Dedicated spaces for black and other minority ethnic staff to  talk about issues as they affect them would be provided;
  • Training on unconscious bias, diversity and inclusion would be available to staff on an ongoing basis.

 

6.15 It was also important to ensure that the voice of young black and other minority ethnic children was sufficiently represented in this programme of work HLT would engage both Young Futures and Hackney Youth Parliament to this effect.  HLT had also issued guidance to schools in developing the ‘youth voice’ which would be assessed by School Improvement Partners. Hackney Schools Group Board had engaged with black parents and the learning from this would be rolled out to other schools.   A Hackney Parents Conference on race was being planned for the coming year.

 

6.16 HLT was also supporting work to develop culturally competent policies and practices, which included:

  • Unconscious bias training and support to schools;
  • Improved tracking of pupil outcomes;
  • Development of model school policies (e.g. behaviour, uniform, hair).

 

Questions from the Commission

6.17 In relation to child performance, do children from black and other minority ethnic groups perform better where there is black representation in the school leadership?

  • Some of the highest achieving local schools do not have diverse representation. The most important factors for children’s achievement were good school leadership, robust policies and practices and engaged and well trained staff.  In terms of a child’s sense of belonging and inclusion which is central to educational engagement, representation was important.
  • It was important that young black people (young males in particular) have better experiences of education as this inevitably affects the numbers of such students who return to education as teachers (and future role models).  It was important to ensure that black and other minority ethnic children see a positive pathway to education in teaching.
  • A closer look at the data would be necessary to assess how outcomes are impacted by black and other minority representation in the school leadership.

 

6.18 What work is taking place to support the school governor's role in addressing racial inequalities in schools and ensure that these bodies are representative of the school community?

  • Governors do play an important role in school leadership and a range of training and development courses are available throughout the borough. There is clearly more to be done by HLT and schools themselves to encourage a wider range of parents to become governors.

 

6.19 In relation to developing the black curriculum, will this be a matter of influence and persuasion with local schools or are there other means available?

  • Given the impact of Covid 19 and the death of George Floyd, most local schools have engaged with the black curriculum team.  This would suggest that there is a recognition in schools that their curriculums need to be adapted.  The School Improvement Partners would be heading into schools in September with the curriculum on the agenda. Schools would appear to be willing but probably need guidance and support to enable that to happen.
  • Whilst HLT cannot force schools to take on initiatives such as this, it can encourage and influence head teachers and governors to recognise the importance of such work.
  • It was reported that there was an appetite for curriculum development across all school settings in both maintained schools and academies.

 

6.20 Given the competing agendas in schools (return to school, catch up in studies) is there anything further action that the council can do to ensure that this issue remains high profile and work continues?

  • The role of public scrutiny plays an important role in holding decision takers to account and this does filter back through to schools.  Therefore bodies such as the CYP Scrutiny Commission can help to ensure that the issue of racial inequality remains high on the local agenda. 
  • Given their response to the death of George Floyd, it was also clear that the voice of young people was also important in driving change and improvements in local schools.  Therefore it was important for schools and other bodies to ensure that the voice of young people can be heard and their views are accounted for in decision.

 

6.21 The Chair thanked all officers for attending and responding to questions from members of the Commission.  It was agreed that it would be helpful if CFS could update the Commission on progress on the Anti-Racist Action Plan in the future (6 months) and if possible, to be included within the Children’s Social Care Bi-Annual Report process.

 

Agreed:  (1) That further data on the ethnicity of the HLT workforce and local teaching workforce is provided to the Commission.

(2) That a further follow up report on the progress to tackle racial inequalities is provided to the Commission within 6 months.





Supporting documents: