Public Services Equality, Diversity, and Fair Treatment Report

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PUBLIC SERVICES EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND FAIR
TREATMENT
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Table of contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1: Key definitions along with characteristics of discriminatory behavior..................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
During the execution, any task in the segment of public service, unconscious bias is bound to
make inroads during the execution of the task unless it is extensively controlled through multiple
approaches. The sole aim for development and presentation of this speech is to make the new
recruits understand the characteristics of the discriminatory behavior and the potential origins
and sources from which such behavior might develop among the public service executives. The
scope associated with this speech lies in the understanding of the discriminatory behavior and the
potential methods that could be used for the mitigation of such behavior. For the execution of
this report, the public service agency would be taken as the Department of Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport.
LO1: Key definitions along with characteristics of discriminatory behavior
Origins of unconscious bias, prejudice and discrimination
Unconscious bias could be defined as the discriminatory behavior projected towards in
individual without any particular intention or even ill will (Noon, 2018). For example,
preferential treatment among two individuals project a form of discrimination that might be
executed by a public service executive without his or her knowledge.
Origins of a discriminatory behavior include the following:
 Background of the individual: In most cases, the background of the individual makes one
habituated with a particular working style. In a public service, this leads to unconscious
or even conscious discrimination by the executive.
 Personal experiences: Personal experience usually drives the decision of an individual in
the future endeavors and project executions (DANIELS and MACDONALD, 2005).
However, in some cases, this becomes the origin of discrimination. For example, an
individual having a poor experience with certain individual might prefer serves them with
less enthusiasm and efficiency relative to an unknown individual.
 Societal stereotypes: Discrimination is not a new thing as it has been existent since time
infinity. However, due to this activity, such unethical approaches towards project
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execution and treatment of individuals have been accepted as norms by the society. As a
result, such stereotypes project itself as an origin of discrimination.
 Cultural difference and preference: In the age of connectivity and digital age, district
borders or even international borders are being faded. As a result, at any given point of
time, public service executives would have to deal with multi cultural individuals
(KUMRA and MANFREDI, 2012). Hence, it is common that an executive would prefer
to serve the individuals of same culture while neglecting individuals of other cultures.
Hence, this results in being an origin of discrimination.
 Halo effect: A halo effect is being defined as a cognitive bias that is made by an
individual depending on the ambiguous or concrete information from a third party source.
This enables the effect to be projected as a source of discrimination (The Economist,
2019).
There are essentially two types of discrimination such as direct discrimination and indirect
discrimination.
In the segment of direct discrimination, the aspect of Lawrence inquiry could be taken into
consideration. Stephen Lawrence was a victim of racial discrimination where he paid for
someone’s hatred with his life. His murder for being a black colored individual was and will
be one of the most shocking incidents of racial discrimination
(Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2019).
Similarly, in the segment of indirect discrimination, institutional racism could be taken into
consideration. It could be defined as the discriminination against a much larger base by the
government or by the local body by using the loopholes of law and preferential treatment of
certain individuals or groups. Such indirect discrimination is essentially seen in the segment
of health, economic benefits and other social welfare schemes. However, institutional racism
is dependent on the activeness of the government and public service executives that carry out
the task of providing and executing the schemes and funds allotted by the government.
Other than the mentioned areas of origins of discrimination, one of the major aspects of
discrimination is prejudice.
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Prejudice is defined a pre conceived opinion which is devoid of the logical reasoning and current
facts regarding a particular task or a module. It additionally includes the aspect of stereotyping
an individual over the personal choices or situations mandates associated with the individuals
(MACDONALD, 2004). There are multiple types of prejudice, which includes the following:
 Gender prejudice: Prejudice in this case includes the most common aspect of women
shaming and preferences to men for providing of care services.
 Racial prejudice: Relative to the mentioned case of Stephen Lawrence, racial prejudice
exists in the form of direct discrimination where the ethnicity of an individual becomes
the identity of the same without taking into consideration the skills or professional
experience of the individual.
 Age prejudice: In the segment of providing public services, age prejudice is one of the
most common instances where the service executive lags behind. For example, in social
and health care, it is equally important for an executive to divide the available resources
for a kid as well as for an aged individual by taking into consideration their consumption
rate and capability.
 Prejudice in sexual orientation: Though this prejudice has been reducing over the years,
still in pockets of UK, such pre conceived and negative opinion could be seen against the
members of the LGBT community (Rosa et al., 2018). However, as an individual
working in the public services, such prejudice should not be taken into consideration
when services are being offered or are being distributed.
 Disability and class prejudice: Social, economic status coupled with disability prejudices
includes the aspect of efficiency and work culture for an individual. In modern aspects
where public services are associated with active community participation, such prejudice
includes perception of poor working capability and management capabilities for those
individuals that have come from humble backgrounds.
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In society, the Allport’s Scale of Discrimination carries out the measurement of prejudice.
Figure 1: Allport’s Scale of Prejudice
(Source: Burnham, 2016)
The scale is a pyramid scale that is segmented into five parts. The anti locution or the hate
speech forms the base of prejudice or discrimination as hatred sometimes leads to
discrimination. The segment of active avoidance become the base of direct and indirect
discrimination like developing policies and standard operating protocols that might be
associated with indirect discrimination and ethnical prejudice (GOV.UK, 2019). The aspect
of physical attack and extermination are physical manifestations of hate and prejudice like in
the example of Lawrence enquires.
Importance understanding of such discrimination in public services
The requirement of understanding of the discrimination in the public services could be analyzed
in five domains. This five domains additionally provided mitigation techniques for the reduction
of discrimination.
 In the segment of internal and external customers: In this segment, understanding of the
potential discrimination in the public service category would depend on the nature of the
customers. Internal customer includes the government as well as the executives of public
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services that form a segment of the government. The external customers include the
citizens and the immigrants that consume such services (CIPD, 2019). Understanding of
such discrimination would enable an executive to provide an efficient care package to
every customer. Mitigation of the same would be conducted with the raising of awareness
during direct communication as well as during multiple camps.
 In the segment of routine and non routine activities: The working phases of the routine
and the non routine activities includes the aspect of the regular public service task as well
as the special services during emergencies or festivities. The importance of understanding
discrimination in this segment would enable an executive to manage the funds and
resources each of the activities in an effective manner. This would be because, the
executive would not have to seed to the political pressure of preferential services in the
routine and non-routine activities. Mitigation of the discrimination in this segment could
be carried out by effective use of the conscious mind of the individual public service
executives.
 In the segment of information sharing and literature communication: Discrimination in
this case includes partial sharing of policy and relevant information like multiple
governmental schemes. Importance in this segment would include the identification of
the processes that could be invoked in order to share an equal quantum of authentic
information to the beneficiaries. The mitigation of discrimination in this segment could
be carried out by following a particular line of approach for the effective sharing of
information. This would additionally include taking into account broadcasting restrictions
provided by the government in certain pockets of UK.
 In the working segment of educating and training of the staff members: Identification of
discrimination in this case includes understanding of the indirect discrimination in the
staff training. Indirect discrimination would be in the form of perceived discrimination
due to module structure, training schedule and training toughness (CIPD, 2019). In such a
public service segment, where service providers are the acceptors of other forms of
service, mitigating of such would include educating of the staff. This would enable an
executive to understand potential discrimination while developing the personal skill set of
the departmental staff.
Analysis of the impact of unconscious bias on public service operations
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Discrimination and prejudice in any form in the aspect of public service essentially reduces the
operational efficiency of the department. Additionally, this reduction would be associated with a
negative domino effect in the event that one of the beneficiaries develops and litigations against
the service providers are brought into effect by the beneficiary. In the segment of the treatment
of the members of the public, prejudice and discrimination enables and would enable a decrease
in the overall trust of the public members on the department as an effective service provider. In
the long end, this would result in the development of strong opposition during conduction of any
relief work associated with any event. Similarly, in the segment of victims of discrimination and
public service operations, development of such individual due to lapses in the operations might
result in the development of the victim into a criminal. As a result, more resources meant for
public service would have to be transferred to maintain civil obedience.
In the mentioned organization, treatment of colleagues has been traditionally been executed
without any bias or prejudice of any kind. The impact on the executives of the partner
organization includes the reduction in the quantum of collaborations between the two. In long
run, this would create a tussle among governmental agencies as well as private agencies in
conduction of public services. Additionally, in the event that staff from the mentioned
department to other departments, he or she might be subjective to prejudice and discrimination
by them for the simple reason of individual personal experience of the members of the partner
organization.
Hence, both the quality of the public service would be degraded along with the image of the
public service organization. This would be because of the negative public perception of the
organization. In the internal segment, the quality of service would be reduced, as servicing
executives would be associated with internal conflicts (UNISON National, 2019). Additionally,
in the external segment, like media portrayal, such practice of discrimination or prejudice by the
executives would result in the negative publicity of the organization. Hence, the reach of the
executives would be reduced largely. In short and long end, this would result in potential
reduction of efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy of the services being offered by these
executive.
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The mentioned negative impacts could be reduced by the conduction of an Implicit Association
Test. This would be because; the test projects a psychological relationship with memory, which
could be used to identify potential cases of discrimination (Implicit.harvard.edu, 2019).
Conclusion
Post the identification of the origin of discrimination and types of prejudice, it could be
concluded that major origin of discrimination would be perception. This would include personal
experience as well as the background of the individual. The reason for the extensive impact of
perception would be due to the impact of the perception on the acceptability of the same.
Additionally, it could be concluded that discrimination essentially projects a negative impact on
the operations associated with the public services. This would be because; the increase in
prejudice would result in the reduction of the streamlining of the processes, which would reduce
efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness.
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References
Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. (2019). [online] Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/277111/4262.pdf [Accessed 25 May 2019].
Burnham, R., 2016. The Nature of Prejudice - Revisiting Allport's Scale . [online]
Rachelburnham.blogspot.com. Available at: http://rachelburnham.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-
nature-of-prejudice-revisiting.html [Accessed 25 May 2019].
CIPD. 2019. People Management Magazine | CIPD. [online] Available at:
https://www.cipd.co.uk/membership/benefits/magazines [Accessed 25 May 2019].
CIPD. 2019. Qualifications & Training | CIPD. [online] Available at:
https://www.cipd.co.uk/learn/training [Accessed 25 May 2019].
DANIELS, K. and MACDONALD, L. (2005) Equality, Diversity and Discrimination: A Student
Text. London: CIPD Publishing.
GOV.UK. 2019. Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. [online] Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/acas [Accessed 25 May 2019].
Implicit.harvard.edu. 2019. About the IAT. [online] Available at:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/iatdetails.html [Accessed 25 May 2019].
KUMRA, S. and MANFREDI, S. (2012) Managing Equality and Diversity: Theory and
Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MACDONALD, L. (2004) Equality, Diversity and Discrimination: How to Comply with the
Law, Promote Good Practice and Achieve a Diverse Workforce. London: CIPD Publishing.
Noon, M., 2018. Pointless diversity training: unconscious bias, new racism and agency. Work,
employment and society, 32(1), pp.198-209.
Rosa, F.A., Magalhães, M.J., Rodríguez-Castro, Y. and Lopez, R., 2018. Prevention of gender
violence and working against LGBT prejudices: The intersection between collective action and
institutional dynamics. International Journal of Iberian Studies, 31(1), pp.45-61.
The Economist. 2019. The halo effect. [online] Available at:
https://www.economist.com/news/2009/10/14/the-halo-effect [Accessed 25 May 2019].
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UNISON National. 2019. Fighting for fairness and equality | What we do | UNISON National.
[online] Available at: https://www.unison.org.uk/about/what-we-do/fairness-equality/ [Accessed
25 May 2019].
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