Dear Colleagues,

I sincerely hope that you are all healthy and working well.

 Please do bear with me if you have e-mailed me on an issue and I have not
replied you as speedily as you might have liked me to. You can always nudge
me on the phone if things get desperate. You see, I am just so busy at the
moment because everyone wants some form of help, support or assistance so I
am doing my best to keep everyone "happy"

Here is another issue (PLACEMENTS)  raised by a colleague, that I felt might
be of use to someone else.

Please feel free to get back to me for any reason whatsoever.

Just a reminder on the BBC request that I put out. All those of you who
would like to respond, please do so to
directly to Jan. at the BBC on 0208 752 4904.

Thanks to all those who have already responded directly to me.

Regards

Mannie Kusemamuriwo
Policy Adviser: Ethnicity & Cultural Diversity
Equality Challenge Unit
3rd Floor, 4 Tavistock Place
London  WC1H 9RA

Tel 020 7520 7063
Fax 020 7520 7069
[log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Emmanuell Kusemamuriwo
Sent: 22 November 2002 11:46
To:
Subject: RE: Work Placements


Dear

Thanks for your e-mail and it's great to hear from you. I do hope everything
is going well.

The answer to your question is this...

Placements are one of the many functions of the institution and they come
under the provision of the teaching and learning function. This could also
be a highly race equality relevant function, so it is very important that
you race equality proof it very carefully.

We also need to remember, as you said in your e-mail, that the CRE has
experienced a lot of complaints in the area of placements.

THIS THEREFORE BRINGS INTO FOCUS, THE STAFF WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THOSE
STUDENTS INVOLVED, THE STUDENTS THEMSELVES AND THE PROVIDER OF THE
PLACEMENT.

Under the requirements of the General and Specific Duties of the RRAA, you
will need to qualify the particular placement for proportionality of race
equality relevance. This will inform you how high the proportionality is for
you to then prioritise what you will need to do in order to ensure that your
requirements, of the provider, are adequate and appropriate. They will need
to incorporate the relevant Specific Duty/ies as required, and everyone
involved, the staff, the provider and the students, will need to be made
aware of their responsibilities and liabilities, if any.

You will then need to include all the requirements in any signed
contracts/agreements and any other information media that you use with
everyone involved,to ensure that this function is delivered according to the
requirements of the institution, commensurate with how the institution is
expected to function under the statutory requirements of the RRAA.

What you will need to always remember is that Placements need to be handled
as you would, any other institutional function and will therefore raise
certain legal implications for the institution, under your vicarious
liability:

1.      Qualify the Placement for race equality relevance.

2.      Determine, as a result of 1. above, which Specific Duties will need
to be incorporated into how the placement function will be delivered, in
order to ensure the mainstreaming of race equality under the RRAA General
Duty.

3.      Through your institutional underpinning Communication and
Consultation Strategy, analyse and determine, which staff will be involved
and how. Then you can conclude what support/training needs they will need to
have, in order to determine who will be able to give the support and/or
training, in the most appropriate manner.

4.      Through your effective institutional Communication and Consultation
Strategy, inform the students involved, what and how the institution expects
and requires of the Placement provider and how any issues of racism will be
expected to be dealt with, under these requirements.

5.      Through this same effective Communication and Consultation Strategy,
you will need to ensure that any racism issues that arise during placement,
will also be notified to you, relative to the monitoring and assessment
Specific Duties that should be incorporated into the function. This will
also enable you to feed what is happening in these placement functions, into
your publishing Specific Duty.

6.      It is the institution's legal responsibility, not the provider, to
ensure that within this particular function, delivery requirements are based
on mainstreaming race equality,as required by the General Duty's three
elements.

As Placements are part and parcel of contracting out/ contractual
agreements, I have attached some more information on this, which you
might/or not, as the case may be, find useful in what you are doing.

The main issue raised by the CRE, regarding Placements, was that complaints
of racism by black and minority students and staff were not dealt with
satisfactorily, due to the lack of effective, mainstreamed, transparent
anti-racist complaints procedures, enshrined within contractual
requirements.

They also found that, any complaining students or staff were ending up being
accused of either being troublemakers trying to mask their incompetence or
that the particular provider they were complaining about had been known to
the institution for years and therefore could possibly not be discriminatory
in any way.

This discourages issues being raised and encourages the perpetrators to
flourish with impunity, wittingly or unwittingly. In reference to
Macpherson, unless institutional processes and procedures are interrogated
and changed as needed, then institutional racism, if present, will never be
dealt with as effectively as it should, not just under the statutory
requirements, but also as part of implementing best institutional practice
for all learners and employees within the institution.

It would also be most advisable to adopt Macpherson's definition of a racist
incident in order for the institution to be able to effectively investigate
any issues raised and definitively come to the conclusion of whether it is
racist or not. Anti-racist procedures are vital, if the institution is to
function as it is required to do, under the three elements of the General
Duty.

I hope this helps. If you need to come back to me on anything that I have
raised, then please feel free to do so at any time.

Also I would like your permission to anonymise this and put it out on the
Jiscmail, as I think other colleagues might find it useful as well.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards

Mannie Kusemamuriwo
Policy Adviser: Ethnicity & Cultural Diversity
Equality Challenge Unit
3rd Floor, 4 Tavistock Place
London  WC1H 9RA

Tel 020 7520 7063
Fax 020 7520 7069
[log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: 22 November 2002 09:27
To: Emmanuell Kusemamuriwo
Subject: Work Placements


        Dear Mannie
        Do you please have any specific guidance for us on the RRAA and work
placements. I remember a speaker from the CRE saying at an ECU workshop that
this was an area where they have many complaints from students. The
University here is in the process of drawing up a work placements policy and
considering race equality within that so any additional information you
have, either on what to include or some background into this area would be
very welcome.
        Thank you,
        Kind regards,