Originally Posted by
toddbabe
I think it is unreasonable to push for certain target numbers, there is nothing wrong with advertising campaigns and recruitment drives for certain people but only as part of an overall drive for a certain number of people full stop.
Absolutely; and that is what we're doing; within the overall publicity drove, money and manpower is being focussed on areas of the population where we traditionally under-recruit.
How you make up that number is irrelevant, if you have advertised the jobs and only a tiny percentage of ethnic minorities take up the offers then so be it! to say that for eg twenty per cent should be from ethnic minorities is a joke, all that you end up doing is prejudicing against none ethnics to help you make your stats and appear to be multi cultural.
Eh? I certainly made no suggestion that we should have different entry standards for different groups for the same job and know of no Serrvice policy that would allow for that. The target figures are a way of keeping score how well (or otherwise) we are doing in getting the "Life in a blue suit's pretty good" message to people outside the traditional recruitment pool. I fear you're sniping at a perception which is way left of arc of the reality; unfortunately you're right thtat that perception can cause resentment and further problems.
The met police have been given a very high figure of ethnicity to be attained by 2012 and already their is evidence of positive discrimination to help achieve this, perfectly good white candidates have been overlooked so that the stats will be met!!!!
I have a mate who's just joined the Met who reckons his application took years for just that reason. And I think that's wrong. And so do our Services, based on my experience at IofR at Cranwell and the message I got on a recent course at Shrivenham's Jt Equality and Diversity Trg Centre.*
And what happens, you get certain ethnic types asking to be removed from certain duties cos they don't agree with them! I am all for ethnic minorities doing any job in society as long as they have been recruited fairly and equally alongside their counterparts irrespective of race, and whilst I fully respect their cultures and different religions they too must respect ours, if they don't think they can fullfill their role due to their religion or beliefs then they shouldn't do the job full stop, nobody should be able to ask for special treatment due to their religion or culture if you want the job you do it in our country by our rules.
No time off for Easter or Christmas then, that's special treatment according to religion. Less sarcasticly, the Met constable case you're refering to is obviously wrong and an abuse of the system, but if people have religious requirements that can be met without compromising operational effectiveness, should we not try to meet them? The intention being to make the individuals feel looked after and therefore get the best out of them as well as avoiding putting potentially good candidates off applying in the first place? Example that spring to mind are Sikh turbans vs berets or caps, veggie and kosher rat packs etc. The "do it in our country by our rules" point is needlessly confrontational and frankly misleading; most of the people being targetted were born and raised here. Indeed, gven that I'm a second generation immigrant from a religion institutionally discriminated against by the Britsh state, I guarantee it's perfectly possible to feel totally loyal to the Crown and the Service in such circumstances; it's my bloody country too. Granted as my family's Irish Catholic and my accent's on the RP side of things I don't exactly stand out as being of immigrant stock, so I don't actually get that sort of comment much but can understand how it'd rile people.
And going back to my Christmas point, a mix of religions can work in your favour; "Certainly you can have time off for Eid/Diwali/Yom Kippur; by the way, you're duty bod on 25 Dec..."
*Yes, I know; "Jt Equality and Diversity Trg Centre?!?!?" Having been pinged to be the bloke from our sqn to do an EO adviser cse there, I must say I think they've got a pretty good grip on things and are pushing a message of getting the best out of each individual to enhance operational effectiveness, which is what the whole agenda should have been from the offset. I don't like the some of the the use of language which I think exacerbates the sort of reaction toddbabe has, but the overall drive is in the right direction