‘Race’, Employment, and Contract Compliance: A Way Forward for Local Authorities?

Abstract

The concern of this article is with action at the local level to combat racial inequality in employment. It draws on the authors’ evaluation of the ‘West Midlands Common Standard’, an innovative policy introduced by a consortium of West Midlands councils to ensure their contractors have, and implement, an equal opportunities in employment policy. The article assesses the impact of the initiative and its potential transferability. It is argued that the Common Standard provides a highly promising model for other local authorities to adopt.

Keywords:

• Racial inequality in employment
• contract compliance
• local government procurement

Notes

¹ Although, for simplicity of presentation, inverted commas have been removed from the words ‘race’ and ‘racial’ in the body of the paper, they are retained here so as to draw attention to the non-scientific status of the concept of race. It is merely a social construct, albeit one with highly significant, and damaging, material effects.

² For further discussion of the importance of the regional approach, and the complexity of establishing the WMF, see Orton & Ratcliffe (2003, chapter 2).