Staffing 'inequality' at assembly

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Just one ethnic minority employee was recruited by the Welsh Assembly Government in the whole of the last financial year, according to figures.

The same report revealed the pay gap between men and women working there has gone from 3.8% to nearly 11% after the merger of quangos into the government.

Opposition AMs called for action to be taken to rectify the figures.

An assembly government spokesman said it had given ethnic minority groups placements to encourage applications.

The report found that 37 people from an ethnic minority background applied for jobs at the assembly government in the last financial year out of more than 1,200 applicants. Just one was appointed.

There were also only two promotions of workers from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Research commissioned by the assembly government in 2005 concluded that many groups including ethnic minority groups had the perception that the organisation did not provide career opportunities for them.

The assembly government has a duty to promote equality, and indeed be an exemplar in this area to other organisations Mark Isherwood AM

At the time, measures were taken to change this perception, but the report's figures are unlikely to improve this image.

The increasing pay gap between men and women within the government was due, said a spokesman, to a relatively large number of male civil servants transferring from old quangos like the Welsh Development Agency.

Mark Isherwood AM, the Conservative member of the equality of opportunity committee, said effective action was needed to improve the figures and decrease the gender pay gap.

"The assembly government has a duty to promote equality, and indeed be an exemplar in this area to other organisations," he said.

"They need to convert warm words into action. It reinforces the perception that year after year, they are output rather than outcome driven."

Plaid Cymru's Helen Mary Jones AM, who is also a member of the equality of opportunity committee, described the figures as "deeply worrying".

She called on the assembly government to carry out a new job evaluation exercise "urgently" and said it should reach out into ethnic communities to discover the reasons for the poor perception.

"Disappointing"

The report would be "disappointing for those who have put considerable effort into promoting equality within the assembly government" said Kate Bennett, from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

She added that if organisations wanted to achieve equality, it needed to be kept at centre stage at all times.

An assembly government spokesperson said that applicants from ethnic minority groups had risen from 2.1% in 2005-06 to 3.7% in 2006-07.

This reflected work that had been done to raise awareness of the assembly government as an employer among ethnic minority groups, the spokesperson added.

A number of initiatives to give members of under-represented groups, including ethnic minority groups, temporary jobs had been initiated and would continue, they said.