Race bias still keeping Brit boardrooms stubbornly white

London, Jan.8 (ANI): Boardrooms across the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom continue to remain stubbornly white, says a report, Race to the Top, by the charity Business in the Community (BITC).

Reaching its conclusion on race bias still being persistent in the country, the BITC is quoted by the Guardian as saying that that management prospects are disproportionately bleak for people from a black or minority ethnic (BME) background - and likely to worsen over the next decade unless action is taken.

It reached its conclusions after analyzing data between 2000 and 2007.

Sandra Kerr, national director for the BITC's Race for Opportunity campaign, called the findings "devastating".

She said that action was needed right away to "shatter the last glass ceiling", and the government needed to lead by example.

"There is definitely a need to put this at the heart of the agenda for government and business," she said.

The report suggests that since 2000 a number of government-led legal measures and race equality initiatives designed to increase top-level opportunities for BME managers have had minimal impact.

These include the strengthening of the 1976 Race Relations Act, the creation of an ethnic minority and employment taskforce, the race equality and diversity action plan, and specialist employment advisers.

The report suggests that a handful of high-profile, top black and ethnic minority executives, such as Suma Chakrabarti, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Victor Adebowale, chief executive of the social care business Turning Point, and the private equity boss Damon Buffini are prominent exceptions.

The gap between ethnic minority representation in senior management and numbers in the wider population is particularly worrying, the report concludes. (ANI)