This article is written by Nafisa Kiani, business support manager for the UK parliament’s Education and Engagement Department

In my time working in the UK civil service, I’ve learned that senior job titles rarely come with South Asian names attached.

This matters to me as a British-Pakistani, as a Muslim, and as a woman. Naturally, I want South Asian civil servants like me to feel represented and valued within their workplaces. But beyond this, I believe better representation of the UK population within parliament more generally will lead to better, more equitable governance.

Whilst studying for a bachelor of science degree in speech and language therapy between 2014 and 2016, I worked for the UK’s House of Commons. Before that, I worked for the table office, inputting oral and written questions and adding MPs’ names to early day motions, transferring parliamentary questions to different government departments, and resolving MPs’ queries via email and phone.

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My work to date has made me very aware of the concerns of constituents throughout the country, and so here I want to express my own. Parliamentary representation by ethnicity is something citizens may very well care about, but it is essentially an internal matter for government to solve, and which if achieved can have a significant and positive impact on the UK public.

I hope public servants of ethnic minority backgrounds will read this and feel emboldened to apply for senior roles within politics, and to make inroads to greater inclusivity at work by reaching out to their peers.

Questioning the interview process

When I first joined the workplace equality network, ParliaREACH, I discussed the need for more South Asian women to take on senior roles within parliament. Listeners present included men and women, and the discussion was fed back to MPs. I argued that although South Asians frequently get interviews for senior roles, few ever get promoted. This is because answers to interview questions are almost exclusively evaluated through the prism of the STAR technique.

Not everyone in the public service is looking to get promoted, but it would be nice if those who rose to the top reflected their workforce, and their country, more.

In other words, candidates who provide strong verbal examples based on a situation, task, action and result are more likely to succeed in the interview stage than those who don’t. This poses a problem because candidates may have a lot of different skills, qualifications and experience, but if they don’t adopt this one very specific technique, they and the workforce needlessly lose out.

The discussion went well, and others agreed that the interview process needed loosening up in order to allow staff equal opportunity to succeed.

Progress is being made

It’s worth pausing here to note some good news. The representation of UK-based South Asian civil servants in senior roles (those who fall into the highest pay band), has risen from 4.4% in 2008 to 9.3% in 2020.

Meanwhile, the percentage increase of BAME employees overall has edged up to 13%. Yet, this current total still falls below the overall percentage of South Asians employed within parliament (24%), as well as those represented as a percentage of the economically active UK population (36%).

Fortunately, the composition of the UK civil service workforce by ethnic group does reflect the economically active UK population. As of 2020, it breaks down into 7% Asian, 3.5% Black, 1.8% Mixed and 0.6% other ethnic groups.

But among the highest pay bands, Asian and Black employees are still very much underrepresented, comprising just 5% and 1.1% of UK senior civil servants respectively. So, there is a clear need for greater representation of South Asian people, and South Asian females in particular, within these higher pay band roles.

Physical representation in parliament of people of minority ethnicities is important, but equally important is their freedom to express and practice their cultural traditions and rituals.

Cultural inclusivity

In May 2018, I helped educate non-Muslim civil servants about Ramadan by delivering a presentation outlining why Muslims fast, and how departments can help Muslims cope better during this important month. I encouraged managers to open prayer rooms for Muslim employees, introduce 15-minute comfort breaks, approve annual leave for Eid, and tailor work meetings to what benefitted all staff members, not just the majority. The response was positive, both from the staff and from management, and my recommendations were put into action.

If you have concerns about diversity and inclusivity in your workplace, I would encourage you to get involved in a workplace equality network if you have one, or start your own if you don’t. Ask your existing equality network to let you get involved with events or projects that observe religious festivals and dates of worship. Alternatively, you can create your own by first emailing staff to sign up, then run an online meeting to discuss your basic premises and ways to move forward.

It is natural that those less represented in senior roles at work should be more motivated to address the imbalance, but this needn’t always be the case. If public servants across racial distinctions collectively stand up for the principle of fair and equal treatment, they can have even greater impact.

Not everyone in the public service is looking to get promoted, but it would be nice if those who rose to the top reflected their workforce, and their country, more. Ethnic representation is a subject all public servants should take seriously, and change to that effect starts with you. — Nafisa Kiani

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