DWP accused of short-termism

The £40m being spent on closing the gaps in employment rate between ethnic minorities and the general population has met with little success, MPs have said.

The "significant" difference of 14.2 per cent in employment rates had hardly changed in 20 years, a report from the Commons public accounts committee found.

It is estimated that the problem costs £1.3bn in benefits and lost tax revenue and £7.3bn to the economy in lost output.

MPs laid the blame at the door of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), claiming that its efforts "lacked continuity", with short-term pilot projects not being given enough time to be effective.

"This stop-start approach has had an adverse impact on Jobcentre Plus's efforts to increase ethnic minority employment," said the report.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said that, based on the current progress, it could take more than 30 years to close the gap.

"The DWP must now set itself a realistic but genuinely challenging target specifically to promote ethnic minority employment, backed up by a longer-term, clear strategy which is more consistently implemented and whose progress is tightly monitored," he said.

But employment minister Stephen Timms said the government had "consistently worked" on the issue.

"Over the last year, for the first time on record, we've had an ethnic minority employment rate that has remained above 60 per cent," he said.

The new deal programme had helped more than 200,000 people from ethnic minorities into work, he added, and the flexible new deal now being developed would include ethnic minority employment targets.

He added: "Employers too have a role to play and we are working in partnership with business and colleagues in the Government Equalities Office to strengthen discrimination law."