Monitoring according to religion

Report: 15
Date: 10 March 2005
By: Clerk

Summary

The purpose of this paper is to trigger discussion and enable members to discuss the monitoring of service delivery and employment practice by religion within a policing context. Members recognise that the Authority’s view on this issue is a growing priority. Although this is an issue which generates strong and potentially conflicting opinions, EODB members in particular will naturally be looked to by their peers for a steer. This paper is not intended to recommend or even request a decision on authority ‘policy’ – only to prompt debate and there are some key questions for debate at paragraph 8 .

1 Scope

1.1 This paper will cover:

• Background
• The legislative framework
• Purpose of equalities monitoring
• Practicalities and feasibility
• Potential barriers
• Fears and anxieties
• Key questions

2 Background

2.1 A range of organisations in the public sector have been considering monitoring service delivery and employment practice by both religion and sexual orientation in particular because gender, ethnicity, age and disability are more common place in equalities monitoring regimes.

2.2 Moreover, a number of organisations now monitor their service delivery and employment practice according to all six equality strands. For example, Birmingham City Council has a three-tier system which ensures that all six equality groups are monitored but the way that information is collected is tailored to the nature of the interaction and the relationship with the service user.

2.3 In August 2004 the Mayor wrote to the then Commissioner to raise representations he had received from a number of faith groups, community members and organisations calling for stop and search practice to be monitored by religion. This follows a growing experience of Islamophobia by Muslim and Asian communities and severe concerns that stops and searches under section 44 of the Terrorism Act are targeting Muslim communities in a discriminatory way.

3 Legislative framework

3.1 Current legislation

3.1.1 Employment Equality Regulations 2003 (Religion and Belief). These European Union directives came into force in December 2003 and ensure protection for all workers from direct, and indirect discrimination, victimisation and harassment on the grounds of religion or belief, and sexual orientation. There is currently no legislation (outside the responsibilities of the Greater London Authority Group) which outlaws religious discrimination in service delivery.

3.1.2 Greater London Authority Act 1999, section 404 (b). This section of the legislation widens the legislative responsibility on public authorities in relation to race, for the GLA and the functional bodies to all equality groups, requiring them:

• To promote equality of opportunity for all persons irrespective of their race, sex disability, age, sexual orientation or religion
• To eliminate unlawful discrimination
• To promote good relations between persons of different racial groups, religious beliefs and sexual orientation

3.1.3 Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Case law under the Race Relations Act 1976 (now amended) ruled that Jewish and Sikh people are protected by the Act because of “a long shared history and a cultural tradition” and that a person can fall into a particular "racial group" either by birth or adherence (Mandla v Dowell Lee, 1983 and Seide v Gillette, 1980).

3.1.4 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Some criminal offences can be charged as religiously aggravated including:

• Assault
• Wounding
• Harassment
• Damage and public order offences e.g. causing people to fear violence or harassment

Where charges are religiously aggravated, more severe sentences can be imposed.

3.2 Proposed legislation

3.2.1 Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. The Public Order Act 1986 outlaws incitement to racial hatred which is committed “when the accused person says or does something which is threatening, abusive or insulting and, by saying or doing, what ever it is, the accused intends to stir up racial hatred or, alternatively, whatever is said or done is likely to stir up racial hatred.” (Racist and Religious Crime – CPS Prosecution Policy, July 2003)

3.2.2 Although Jewish and Sikh people are covered by this legislation, other religions remain outside this protection prompting a government commitment to close this gap by including a clause in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill to outlaw incitement to religious hatred.

3.2.3 There has been significant publicity in relation to concerns that this will inhibit critical discourse. However, incitement to racial hatred legislation is very clear that: “free speech includes the right to offend others in certain circumstances. We have to balance the rights of an individual to freedom of expression against the duty of the state to step in to prevent violence or the threat of violence.” (Racist and Religious Crime – CPS Prosecution Policy, July 2003)

Any new legislation to outlaw incitement to religious hatred will share the important balance between freedom of speech and the freedom from hate motivated violence.

3.2.4 Single Equality Commission Bill. This will put forward proposals to ensure that discrimination on the grounds of religion in goods and services is made unlawful.

3.3 Future legislation

3.3.1 Following establishment of the Single Equality Commission, its first task will be to review British anti-discrimination legislation possibly making the case for a single equality act which can ensure legislative parity across the equality strands to the standards set out by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act.

3.3.2 This would mean all public authorities would have a legislative responsibility to monitor all their functions and policies by age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual orientation.

4 Why do we monitor?

‘4.1 You can’t measure what you don’t monitor’ - Mainstreaming equality and diversity is a performance issue – without high quality data collection according to equality groups, an organisation is unable to assess its performance from an equalities perspective more broadly, or more specifically, against its equality and diversity statements, policies and legislative requirements.

4.2 The purpose of equalities monitoring has always been to determine whether a service is discriminatory. By knowing the identity of service users or employees, further analysis can enable an organisation to assess whether there is a differential experience depending on an individual’s identity. Monitoring is one way of ensuing, and evidencing, a high quality service.

4.3 Monitoring assists an organisation’s planning process. High quality information enables an organisation’s services and employment practice to improve its appropriateness of response. By highlighting gaps in service provision, the organisation is equipped to respond confidently to those gaps.

4.4 Equally, monitoring evidences success and achievement.

5 Monitoring according to religion – practicalities and feasibility

5.1 The majority of equalities monitoring categories are led by the Office for National Statistics who compile, administer and analyse the census. A question on ethnicity was asked for the first time in 1991. The ‘16+1’ classification system for ethnicity was introduced in 2001.

5.2 It is crucial that public authorities use ONS classifications because these represent a universal set of categories which enable meaningful comparison with other organisations across geographical areas and sectors.

5.3 Religion was asked as a voluntary question for the first time in 2001. There was approximately an 80% response rate and there are concerns that a significant minority of people who did respond gave a flippant answer leading to concerns around the quality of any potential baseline in London.

5.4 The census classifications relating to religion are:

• Buddhist
• Christian
• Hindu
• Jewish
• Muslim
• Sikh
• Other
• No faith

5.5 There are examples of service delivery where the MPS already collects information according to religion, for instance in cases relating to religiously motivated hate crime. Further, monitoring information across the six equality groups is collected from all new applicants to the MPS. However, this information is not available in relation to existing staff.

6 Fears and anxieties

6.1 ‘Political correctness gone mad‘ – this often-quoted comment refers to concerns that the requirement to collect information across more or all equality groups is ‘going too far’. However, it is the principle of monitoring according to equality groups which is key to this debate. If there is consensus that discrimination can be uncovered through accurate data collection, colleagues are then able to explore innovative ways of collecting this information which can easily be made integral to policing practice rather than posing an ‘added burden’.

6.2 ‘All forms will need to be amended’ and will ‘need to be built into existing case management systems and databases as an additional specification’ – these comments point to concerns that all existing documentation will need to be amended to enable the collection of more information and pose obvious barriers. However, innovative approaches to this obstacle include using IT systems to support the MPS to collect and analyse this information. For instance, how can the Criminal Justice Information Technology (CJIT) initiative assist the MPS to extend the information they are enabled to collect?

6.3 ‘You can’t ask someone for that information’ – clearly this is a key concern – officers often feel that information according to equality groups is ‘personal’ and are unclear of how to ask for this information sensitively and appropriately. Officers need to feel totally confident around the reasons behind the collection of the information, and, to ensure that members of the public share that confidence.

Moreover, these sentiments are very similar to those that were expressed during the introduction of routine ethnicity monitoring, which is now both common practice and mandatory

Further, this is a change in practice that religious leaders and campaigners are calling for. This demonstrates that there is strong support within parts of some communities for the police service to ask exactly these questions as part of a reassurance that the communities they identify with are not unfairly targeted.

6.4 Clearly these issues are all connected to the practice of equalities monitoring. First, the organisation needs to be clear on its view on the principle of equalities monitoring. The key question remains:

From a perspective of ensuring equal access to a high quality service, and to an employer of choice, should the MPS monitor by religion?

7 Increasing primacy of religious identity

7.1 Case law has established that legally, Jewish and Sikh communities are ‘racial groups’ under the race relations legislation. This is one indicator that cultural, ethnic and religious identities are inextricably linked for many Londoners. Black and minority ethnic Londoners who experience religiously aggravated crime may be the target for this abuse because their faith is visible e.g. a Sikh man who wears the turban or a Muslim woman who wears the hijab. However, from a legislative perspective discrimination against Sikh communities would be described as racially aggravated crime, but described as religiously aggravated, when perpetrated against Muslim communities. Community members are targeted because of what the perpetrator identifies through their stereotypical assumptions of ‘what a Muslim looks like’.

7.2 Cultural, ethnic and religious identities are not static; rather they are always in flux. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that for Asian communities in particular, religion is increasingly becoming their primary identity, rather than their ethnicity. Suggested reasoning behind this points to rises in Islamophobia following the riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley in the summer of 2001, and September 11th, 2001, arguing that non-Muslim Asian people who might be perceived to be Muslim because of stereotypical perspectives of ‘what a Muslim looks like’, increasingly want to mark themselves assertively as not Muslim.

7.3 Debate on this issue prompts strongly opposing viewpoints. For example, the debate within communities and among practitioners around monitoring of stop and search practice by religion is markedly divided. For example, the Home Office have been engaging in initial consultation on this issue and have found that communities in the north of England are more likely to be opposed to monitoring of stop and search practice by religion, as are young male Muslims.

8 Key questions for debate

8.1 In principle should the MPS (and the MPA) be collecting information according to religion in relation to all service delivery and employment practice?

8.2 In relation to stop and search, given the specific concerns raised by sections of London’s communities in relation to this practice what are members’ views on the MPS conducting a pilot to test monitoring according to religion?

8.3 If members are opposed to monitoring by religion, in particular in relation to stop and search, what alternative steps should the MPS take to demonstrate proportionality in stop and search practice, in particular under section 44 of the Terrorism Act?

9 Contact details

Report author: Hamida Ali, Race and Diversity Unit

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback