There is a debate going on at this site, regarding an article in the Daily Mail.

The main article was questioning the idea of who is British, is it based on where you were born, or who your parents are?

Within the comments are a few people pointing out that the Ethnic monitoring policy of employees are doing more harm that good in the grand scheme of things.

It got us thinking that we needed to confirm what the law required businesses to do.

The basics are as follows:

The Race Relations Act 1976, as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on grounds of race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin. The Act applies to England, Scotland, Wales, and similar legislation launched for Northern Ireland in 1997. It applies to jobs, training, housing, education and the provision of goods, facilities and services. It is also unlawful for public bodies to discriminate while carrying out any of their functions.

The Race Relations Act applies to anyone providing goods, facilities or services to the public. It is unlawful to be refused a service, or not to be given the same standard of service.

The idea of monitoring the policy isn’t a requirement. There are no such things as official ethnic monitoring templates. However, there are requirements on public bodies to monitor the success of their equality policies.

The debate raised an interesting idea that by not asking people which sub set of ethnicity they came from, the more it promoted a multicultural environment. Employees would be British, unless their passports said differently.

What do you think? Read the Daily Mail article, read the link to the equalities commission and let us know if you agree.

Originally posted 2009-02-27 12:44:12.