Sector requires a step change to tackle workforce diversity - Museums Association

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Sector requires a step change to tackle workforce diversity

ACE report asserts that increasing diversity requires more power in the hands of those who appreciate the need for change. By Rob Sharp
Arts Council England’s (ACE) latest diversity report reveals the step change that the cultural sector needs to embrace if it is to counter under-representation across its workforce in terms of ethnicity, gender and disability.

The 2016-2017 report Equality, Diversity and the Creative Case, which covers museums as well as other arts sectors, reveals that 4% of  staff at Major Partner Museums (MPMs) and 11% of staff at National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) are from a black, Asian and minority-ethnic (BAME) background, compared with 13% identified in the 2011 census and 16% of the working age population.
 
The report states that while 20% of working age adults in England identify as having a work-limiting disability, only 4% of staff at NPOs and MPMs identify as disabled.

ACE says it has no data on more than a third of the MPM and NPO workforce. The University of Oxford, for example, did not supply data, partly because the degree of information required conflicts with its need to protect data.

Lucy Shaw, the head of the Oxford University Museums Partnership, says: “Our workforce diversity is 10% for BAME across Oxford museums, but that data isn’t included in the arts council report because of how the data is presented in its annual data return. In summary, the data they require is quite granular, in a way the university is concerned would infringe its data protection policy.”

Shaw says museums know that they have “got a lot to do” to transform their workforces and audiences. “A big step change I’ve seen is how we work with local community groups, particularly people from diverse communities,” she says . “We are very keen for this to be about agency, and not for us to be doing stuff to local communities in a patronising way, but as part of a two-way process.”

She points to the Museums Association-managed Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund’s £120,000 grant last year to the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of the History of Science to create volunteering experiences for people from refugee communities.

Working with communities

David Bryan, the director of Xtend, a consultancy working in community development and social enterprise, and a member of ACE’s National Council until last November, also highlights the role of museums working closely with their communities to tackle the issue.
 
“The mindset that some museums have to just work with their collections and make singular interpretations of the material as their only focus is limiting,” he says. “There needs to be different ways, as a few are doing, that engage with diverse and local communities. Museums need to become not just knowledge institutions that sit in the community, but active and integral parts of their community.”

Bryan adds that there should be a rethink on recruitment. “The standard approach to recruitment relies on there being vacancies,” he says. “So you get this whole nonsense debate about who do you get rid of to make way for others. It’s a destructive approach that makes new recruits feel like token appointments, even though they are always qualified for the job.”

In the introduction to the Equality, Diversity and the Creative Case report, ACE chairman Nicholas Serota writes: “For the arts and cultural sector, diversity is a test of resolve, not because of a lack of willingness, but because many of the underlying power structures of our world evolved in past eras, and the processes of succession have gone unchallenged.

“Aspirations are not always translating into meaningful actions or significant appointments. The reasons are complex, but leadership plays a major role. More power should be in the hands of those who understand the need for change."


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