A month ago a concerned work colleague showed me a copy of an EY2 form issued by the English education standards office, OFSTED, which included an ethnic monitoring form. The options included White British, White Irish, White Scottish and White Welsh.
Bearing in mind that OFSTED only operates in England, the exclusion of White English from the ethnic monitoring form is inexcusable and when White Scottish, White Irish and White Welsh are included, it is almost certainly illegal under the Race Relations Act.
At the beginning of August I wrote to OFSTED about the form:
A concerned colleague has shown me a copy of the EY2 form he was required to complete for Hadley Learning Centre in Telford. The form provided many options for ethnicity including White British, White Scottish, White Welsh and White Irish. The form did not have an option for White English.
Can you please explain why White English is missing from the EY2 form when White Scottish and White Welsh are present? I believe this is a breach of the Race Relations Act and a failure in Ofsted’s duty to accurately monitor ethnicity as the White British option which is clearly meant to include White English will also include an element of White Scottish, White Welsh and White Irish.
Please include details of how to make a complaint regarding the racist nature of your EY2 form with your response to save me asking should your explanation be unsatisfactory.
No reply was forthcoming so I chased them up and got the following reply:
Dear Mr Parr
Thank you for your enquiry below. It is not clear from the correspondence I have seen whether you were sent a response to your enquiry and the relevant people to ask are on annual leave at present.
Therefore, I am sending you this response now in case you have not yet received a reply.We are most grateful to you for pointing out that the EY2 form does not include the category ‘White – English’. This was an oversight on our part and we apologise for this.
We have recently reviewed the way in which we monitor the ethnicity and nationality of those with whom we have contact. As a result of this, we have developed a revised monitoring questionnaire which includes as separate categories under ethnicity a person’s national group and their ethnic group. I can confirm that the national group will include the following categories
British or Mixed British
English
Irish
Scottish
Welsh
Other (specify if you wish)We believe that this new monitoring form will enable all individuals to express their ethnic origin in an appropriate way. We will update all our existing forms to use the new format as they are reprinted, although as I am sure you can appreciate, this may take some time to achieve.
Thank you once again for bringing this to our attention.
Dee Gasson
Principal Officer
Childcare Registration and Enforcement
It is reassuring to see that OFSTED are taking their responsibilities seriously and will begin to accurately monitor English ethnicity and nationality. However, there is still some concern over the amount of time the reprinting of existing forms will take bearing in mind the fact that we believe them to be illegal so I have asked OFSTED how long it is likely to take for the current forms to be replaced. While we would be very reluctant to cause the underfunded English education system unneccessary expenditure, OFSTED have a duty under English law to accurately monitor the ethnicity and nationality of English students and if, as we believe, the current forms are illegal we may press for more urgent action to have them replaced.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This could lead to other authorities to follow OFSTED, if as they are saying that your observation is right and thet they have “overlooked”, the English in thier ethnicity forms then we now have basis to which we can refer when arguing the case for English to be included, examples of this are the English NHS, and local councils in England, well done
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:37 pmI say, well done, old chap. Officially an ethnicity at last. This will have Labour spinning in their gold plated limos!
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:27 pmThey have also forgotten the Cornish who were given the code 06 in the 2001 UK census.
More details here: http://cwis.org/fwj/81/02Kernow/
Surely the CEP is concerned about other ethnic groups than the English that would be found within the territory coved by an English Parliament.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pmwhat we are about Mr Hosking is an English Parliament within or without the uk and with or without Cornwall. you fight your own battles.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm“oversight” my arse! They knew exactly what they were doing, and if Wonko hadn’t tackled them nothing would of changed.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:31 pmWell done Wonko. If we ever meet i’ll buy you a pint of ale. English ale that is!
Philip, Cornwall is part of England and I don’t believe there is any benefit to either England or Cornwall in Cornish independence – Cornwall would be the poorest nation in Europe if it was no longer part of England. There may be a case for devolution to Cornwall if Cornish people wanted and voted for it but how power could be devolved from an English Parliament would be a matter for the English Parliament itself. There are other regional nationalists in England with similar claims that have little or no historic or cultural basis. Cornwall has been a fully integrated county of England for centuries, Wessex (the other main regional nationalist campaign) hasn’t existed for a long time.
It’s too big a subject for a comment. How about you write a case for Cornish independence for publication on this blog?
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 pmWell done, Wonko. However, I’d still like a look at the full details. It appears that Ofsted are adopting the approach of the proposed 2011 census, but with subtle (and questionable) differences. For example, in the census form for England, the ‘national identity’ categories are specified in the order: English; Welsh; Scottish; Northern Irish; British; Other, write in. This order, which places England first (as appropriate for something relating to England) has been replaced in the proposed Ofsted form by alphabetical order, which then conveniently puts ‘British or Mixed British’ in the top spot. In my view, this makes it more likely that English-identifying people will nonetheless select ‘British’ first and not bother about also ticking ‘English’, especially as ‘Mixed British’ (?) appears to include people who have mixed English + other British heritage. Also, why has ‘Northern Irish’ been replaced by ‘Irish’?
I’d like to see how the ‘national group’ categories (as above) are differentiated from the ‘ethnic group’ categories. In the proposed 2011 census, the two overlap in quite inappropriate ways that precondition people to put down ‘British’ as their ‘national identity’ rather than – or, at least, in addition to – ‘English’ when they might otherwise not have done so. And that includes ‘non-white’ people, who are not offered the option of defining their ‘ethnic group’ identity as English, while white people are offered this option. That’s racist in another way: saying that only white people can be viewed as English, and everyone else in England has to be considered as British. If this lie is perpetuated in the revised Ofsted form, I think it could be challenged on racial-discrimination grounds for that reason, too (as could the 2011 census form, indeed). (Cf. my discussion on the census elsewhere.)
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:04 amWell done – great result! Let’s make sure this gets rolled out.
What proportion will choose British over English? After 300 years of buried English identity, 50 years of mass immigration, 40 years of leftist self loathing and >10 years of blatant anti Englishness from the Scot/Labour/Brit government – does England still have a pulse?
At least this gives us the chance to find out.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 amRead and learn wonkotsane: http://cwis.org/fwj/81/02Kernow/
Why are you changing the subject to Cornish independence? You can deal with the conceptual differences between ethnic identity recognition and self-determination can’t you?
The fact remains many in our constitutional Cornish Duchy consider themselves to be Cornish first and foremost. The ethnic data from the 2007 Cornish schools survey showed that 27% of children consider themselves to be Cornish rather than British or English. This has increased with the recent survey to I believe 34%. The results from the 2001 UK population census show over 37,000 people hold a Cornish identity instead of English or British. On this census, to claim to be Cornish, you had to deny being British, by crossing out the British option and then write ‘Cornish’ in the “other” box. In the
2011 UK census we will again be able to record our ethinc and national identity as Cornish. This fact will also be getting much more publicity this time round.
Therefore if an English parliament wishes to represent all its indigenous (and new) ethnic groups surely you should be calling for OfSTED to recognise the Cornish as well. One of the peoples found in what you consider your nation. That is unless you are just an ethnic nationalist who thinks only in terms of serving the English ethnic group.
As for being a happy and intergrated part of England why then are all our MP’s backing a ‘Government of Cornwall Bill’ that seeks to establish a Cornish Assembly? Why did the Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow, get three councillors on the new council and out poll Labour in the EU election in Kernow? Why do we have a growingly popular and fully funded minority Celtic language? Why do we have a political nationalist movement with its roots in pre First World War Britain? Why did 50,000 people sign a petition in 2002 calling for the creation of a Cornish Assembly?
So is Cornwall party of England? http://www.duchyofcornwall.eu
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 amWell done Wonko for reversing the tide of state-sponsored anti-Englishness. It may only be a tiny victory but it’s a start.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 pmWell done Stuart!
What I love is the fact they have English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and British.
Why is “British” in there? Surely all the bases are covered by the constituent nationalities. Maybe we should point out the fact British is surplus to requirements these days.
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pmTerry makes a good point. Is “British” not a redundant category in view of the separate classification of all the constituent UK nations.
In any event, well done Stuart – this could mark quite a sea change in the design of future governmment forms.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:57 amWonko !! Well done, St George awakens at last
September 9th, 2009 at 8:17 amPhil, have you ever heard of the expression “tilting at windmills”? It comes from Don Quixote and it means someone who fights an imaginary enemy or futile war. Wonko has offered a forum for your cause on this blog, which is pretty generous considering the mountain we have to climb. In the meantime, could you please recognise that the entity denying you self determination is the British and not the English?
I once read that the “Ooh Aarh Eay” (tabloids’ name for the military wing of the Cornish nationalists) declared that cars carrying the CoSG were a “legitimate target”; and all your posts and writings are aimed at the English. Don’t you realize that the English have no power and your lack of recognition is down to the BRITISH Government? Don’t you know the difference between Britain and England? Don’t you realize that we have no national representation and are therefore incapable of recognizing anyone?
Your link contains the following line… “With the English education system encouraging English nationalism in Cornwall at the expense of the indigenous Cornish identity…”
Really? Well bloody hell! Book my kids in for a place there because the British Education Minister in my part of the world is denying any expression of Englishness in the classroom. How do you guys manage to overcome Ed Balls’ Anglophobic diktats?
September 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pmWe’re all ears, please let us know!