This is an interesting read. Theresa May‘s government launches a website that offers a complex picture of life for different ethnicities.
Source: UK race-disparity audit: Theresa May’s government has put Britain’s inequality on display — Quartz
Personally, I found the data rather sterile. It needs a rolling commentary to highlight the major findings by theme/ethnicity.
The data is esentially descriptive and does not readily facilitate further analysis.
For meaningful analysis, access to the full data set is required, ideally showing key demographic details like:
- Age
- Social class
- Ethnicity
- Income
- Highest education status
- Home ownership status
- Marital status
Theresa May and David Cameron before her, have tried to provide greater data to facilitate policy decisions. Unfortunately, I fear that this latest data will do little to improve the underlying policies.
There’s a risk here of journalists dipping into the database and cherry-picking their data to embellish a headline.
Ethnicity is a complex subject and without expert commentary, and detailed data sets, it’s not clear how this initiative will help faciltate policy changes.
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
Dr Alf is right and the data is not only sterile but redundant.
It is redundant because study after study has been done and all of them point to an unequal and ossified society which in many instances is living in the past.
Other data tells us the true position and given May’s record in the Home Office we can be certain that little or nothing will be actually done.
We have 400 World class companies out of 6 million registered at Companies House,Cardiff and in 1994 under the Heseltine “Competitiveness White Paper” we had 250 out of a total of 4.8 million businesses.
That document referred to “indifferent management quality” and more recently we have had Andy Haldane ,Chief Economist for the Bank of England writing about “Zombie Companies” and senior management which thinks it is better than it really is resulting in decades of uncompetitiveness,no productivity gains and 1.8 million underperforming businesses.
Germany,the loser of 2 world wars had 2000 World Class companies in 1994 and now has 2,500.
It has directors who are scientists and engineers,more exports than anyone else in the world bar China and a Mittelstand.
Germany’s directors are all scientists,engineers and degreed ,competent people and the income gap between them and those on average pay is 25 to 1 whereas here it is up to 450 to 1 when bonuses and other emoluments are factored in ,even though this massive difference in income is nearly always not reflected in performance which suggests that most of them were appointed under false pretences not on the basis of being the best person for the job.
Looking at who is in charge we see that 93% of Times 1000 CEO’s are men,that 99% of them are white and middle class ,attended Oxbridge Universities have 2.2 children and wear similar clothing ,went to similar schools.
We are told that the reason for this predominance of white male directors,civil servants ,Chief Constables,Fire Chiefs,judges,quangocrats and senior managers is because of lack of suitable candidates of the “right calibre” amongst the disadvantaged communities.
This and accents,lack of “tough poise” and the right make of suit has been used to exclude woman,Jews,Asians,ethnic Chinese and people with non English surnames from getting onto shortlists for years but if any of these people managed to get onto one they would always be made to “fall” at the last hurdle as “outstanding candidates pipped at the post ” by someone even more outstanding who fitted the mould of “Midsomer man or occasionally woman”.
The only way to change things quickly is to adopt the Norwegian system of quotas so that top people are represented in proportion with their numbers in the general population.
May who is incompetent,duplicitous and inept should start with her Cabinet which is 100% white but she will not and even when she is replaced we may still see no meaningful change.
Looking at the Mid Caps we see a similar thing except that they tended to have attended “red brick ” universities and grammar schools.
There is more variation amongst the Jordans 5000 but not enough to make a real difference.
Unless we get more equality of outcome and more diverse in our approach we will find society more fractured,more polarised and less able to perform in a diverse world in which China,India and Brazil will become superpowers and others like Switzerland,Singapore and South Korea will be “eating our lunch”.