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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-diversity/do-diversity-schemes-work
Do diversity schemes work?
From measurability to social background, the media industry must overcome a variety of hurdles if initiatives to diversify recruitment are to be successful
Alexa Baracaia
The Guardian
In 2001 BBC director general Greg Dyke described the organisation he ran as "hideously white". But eight years later the statistics no longer back up this assertion. The BBC employs 12.1% of its staff from ethnic minorities and Channel 4, 12% - all well above the national population average of 8%. ITV reflects that average, drawing 8% of its staff from ethnic minorities (up from 3.8% in 2004).
But, while the BBC has succeeded in acquiring a diverse workforce, only 5.6% of its senior staff are from ethnic minorities. On average they are also leaving the BBC far quicker than other staff, after an average 6.1 years. Meanwhile, 4.4% of BBC staff are disabled and just 3.4% of senior posts are held by people with disabilities.
And while all the broadcasters have a staff split roughly 50:50 along gender lines, just 36% of the BBC's upper echelons are female, a figure, says the BBC Trust, that has seen "no improvement over recent years".
At ITV the workforce is 2% disabled, although at board level 7% are disabled, 14% are women and none are black or ethnic minority. At senior management level, ethnic minorities make up 5% and women 33%. At Channel 4 the number of ethnic minority heads of department has risen from 2% in 2006 to 8% today. Sky, which has traditionally focused on attracting a diverse audience rather than a diverse staff, has this year turned to strategising about how it can address the scarcity of women and ethnic minorities in senior roles. There is no doubt that huge strides have been taken.
Last year Trevor Phillips launched his Superdiversity report into race in TV. Ethnic minority groups, he concluded, felt broadcasters perpetuated racial stereotypes - which led to a lack of minority people in positions of power.
This year the Cultural Diversity Network (CDN), a broadcast industry collective set up in 2000, decided more had to be done. It launched its diversity pledge asking broadcasters and independent production companies to sign up, with a target of 250 independents by the end of the year. To date, 137 have done so.
Oona King, Channel 4 head of diversity, insists it's no gimmick. "The priority is translating goodwill into action." By joining, companies agree to have their progress tracked. "And we're underpinning that with practical help," says King. "One MD of an independent said: 'We're hiring next week, can you send me some diverse CVs?' So we did and one of those people is working for them now."
The other big idea is a mentoring scheme, launched last autumn to help drive more ethnic minorities into top roles. Jacqui Boardman, senior partner at Acona, who provides the secretariat for the CDN, says: "We wanted to give them access to a very senior member of the industry who could spend a year to help guide their career decisions."
Thus far, results have been mixed. For mentee Ninder Billing (see box), the scheme eventually landed her a job as executive producer for factual in BBC Vision.
But veteran black freelance TV producer Geoff Small, 48, is not so sure. More than a year after his last commission, acclaimed BBC documentary Black Power Salute, he is still out of work. While he has no complaints about his mentor, BBC director of London 2012 Roger Mosey, he is cynical about the scheme's outcomes. "I've seen these diversity initiatives come and go. But people at [a certain] level are no more diverse than they were 15 years ago."
One group starting to apply pressure is The TV Collective. The 400-strong network, whose members include Krishnan Guru Murthy and the BBC's incoming chief creative operating officer Patrick Younge, was set up after a meeting organised by Channel 4's King to hear about the experiences of ethnic minorities in TV. Its director and founder, documentary maker Simone Pennant, is blunt: "Diversity schemes aren't working."
The problem, she says, is threefold. First, "a scheme is not the greatest calling card ... Very often it feels like you've been given the opportunity because you're different." Second, "when it comes to hiring, people tend to think about who they know." Third, the industry still does not recognise the commercial benefits of diversity - especially in a recession. "The TV and papers are in a panic about why this or that community is leaving and going online but they're not looking at diversity as a business angle."
Pennant thinks the way forward is training for the people in charge. The TV Collective is plotting a series of casting seminars to teach producers to look at diversity in a different way. "It's not about thinking: we need a Muslim. The story should come first. "
Sandra Kerr, national director of business equality outfit Race for Opportunity, says the reason the industry has been closed to ethnic minorities is "the nature of how you get in. It's about connections." The schemes that don't work, she says, are the unpaid ones: "You're dealing with social mobility. If a scheme is unpaid then many ethnic minority young people are excluded."
One of the most effective initiatives, she says, is FT owner Pearson's Summer Internship, a paid placement working on specific projects for "non-white British" graduates. Over five years, 70% of recruits have taken up permanent or temporary positions. Says Kerr: "Schemes like this work because the recruits have to undergo just as punishing a training as mainstream staff. All you're doing is levelling the runway."
Research commissioned by the CDN, as yet unpublished, shows that one of the biggest barriers to recruitment is social background. In recent years broadcasters have created schemes to address this. ITV recently merged its diversity and talent strategies, as did the BBC, while the BBC's Journalism Trainee Scheme is mindful of attracting recruits from a mix of backgrounds, not least social class.
Enabling Talent is ITV's disability talent scheme. Creating relationships with disability organisations, short-term placements and traineeships are all part of this initiative. David Cooper, a former Enabling Talent trainee who now works for ITV says: "Enabling Talent is something truly different in the jobs market: a scheme that applies positives to every aspect of disability and transforms those who may never have entered the industry into the champions of diversity for the future."
Channel 4's main diversity project, the Production Trainee Scheme, places 18 people a year with independents. The impact has been measurable off- and onscreen.
But schemes can only work if they are administered proactively, says Channel 4 diversity and talent manager Ade Rawcliffe. "While running our schemes we realised it was easy to attract some groups; but others, particularly African Caribbean, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white working-class boys were harder to attract. Youth workers were telling us that if you come from an estate in Tower Hamlets, even if you see one of these ads, you don't believe they'd ever employ you. So we increased our outreach work and we now regularly have schools and media projects coming into Channel 4 to get the message out that we want talented people regardless of background."
Another issue coming to the fore is sexuality. The 2009 Stonewall 100 Equality Index is a wake-up call for media companies. The British Transport Police, HM Prison Service and Lloyds TSB are included, but Time Warner is the only media company to make the top 100 - at number 90.
Stonewall is now actively working with the "big four" broadcasters - although the newspaper industry, says the organisation, has been less forthcoming.
ITV is one of the first to introduce sexuality monitoring for new starters on its equal opps form. Diversity manager Sara Hanson says: "It's easy to assume you're inclusive but we don't know that because a lot of companies don't measure it."
Therein lies another problem: the lack of standardised data. While Skillset collates figures on employment, their last major research was in 2006, and Ofcom only publishes the most generalised diversity statistics for broadcast media as a whole.
Bectu diversity officer Janice Turner says the lack of comprehensive monitoring means a lack of proper regulation. She and others are now hoping for action from the Broadcasting Training & Skills Regulator, which has just been passed responsibility for equal opportunities by Ofcom.
Meanwhile, the newspaper industry does not produce any diversity stats at all. "The print industry has done very little to make its workforces reflect the diversity of the communities they serve," says NUJ equality officer Lena Calvert. "Whereas broadcasting companies produce diversity statistics, the print media does not. Current practice consists of unpaid work experience, so mostly middle-class, white students will be able to afford to do it. This is shortsighted and will only result in more readers being lost. An agreement to monitor and publish figures would be a first step."
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