1 Local public services and their bureaucratic apparatus
The year 2020 will be remembered by many for two transformational phenomena that raised concern about racial inequalities in the United Kingdom and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed racial inequalities, and the Black Lives Matter protests challenged racial discrimination and made loud and explicit calls for racial equity.
To highlight what is at stake, you will now explore some statistics. According to the Office of National Statistics, ‘deaths involving the coronavirus … by ethnicity for England and Wales … among some ethnic groups [are] significantly higher than that of those of White ethnicity … Black males are 4.2 times more likely to die from a COVID-19-related death, and Black females are 4.3 times more likely than White … People of Bangladeshi and Pakistani, Indian, and mixed ethnicities … had a statistically significant raised risk of death involving COVID-19’ (ONS, 2020).
Many explanations of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 emerged, including ‘social and economic inequalities, racism, discrimination and stigma, occupational risk, inequalities in the prevalence of … obesity, diabetes, hypertension and asthma’ (Tapper, 2020). Three years after the initial response to COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns, there is an emerging consensus that the ‘COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the depth of social and racial inequalities in the United Kingdom’ (Balakumar et al., 2020).
The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25th May 2020 led to global Black Lives Matter protests that ‘brought inequalities and institutional bias to the forefront of public consciousness’ in the United Kingdom (Balakumar et al., 2020). Across the United Kingdom, in ‘260 towns and cities, thousands defied lockdown to join largest anti-racism rallies since slavery era’ (Mohdin et al., 2020). In terms of numbers, ‘more than 210,000 people … attended demonstrations around the country, including 10,000 protesters in Brighton, 4,000 in Birmingham and 3,000 in Newcastle’ (Mohdin et al., 2020).
One of the issues relating to policing that has been high on the agenda among young Black people and other racialised minorities is stop-and-search. Stop-and-search occurs when police officers have reasonable suspicion that a member of the public they stop and search is, for example, carrying a knife or drugs. In the year ending in March 2021, there was an increase of 24 per cent in stop-and-search across England and Wales. On the face of it, stop-and-search is neutral and arises when there is reasonable suspicion. AndHome Office figures suggest that ‘Black, Asian and minority ethnic … males aged 15-19 were searched 208 times for every 1,000 people’ (Dodd, 2021). In 2021, Black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people compared to nine times the previous year; a rational explanation for ‘impact of the tactic on Black people compared with people of other races’ is yet to emerge (Dodd, 2021).
Addressing racial inequalities requires joining the dots and getting all the stakeholders on board. It requires individual, group and societal actions. It is, in other words, everyone’s business, including you. Local actions are vital in addressing racial inequalities. Recently, racialised minority activists have noted an increased demand by individuals wanting to be involved in consultations with local authorities, local National Health Services (NHS) trusts and the local Police (Mutwarasibo, 2021). Public service consultations with racialised minorities are not new and have mixed reviews; moreover, as a Black leader, consultations with local public services offer an opportunity to influence and shape how the local public services address racial inequalities. One vital point is that many people managing these consultation processes are not necessarily elected representatives. Although councillors, the police and crime commissioners might feature in some of these consultations, they are, by and large, managed by professionals working for local public services. This week, you will explore how to engage and work with professionals delivering local public services.