Minority ethnic employment in the Scottish social housing sector: evidence scoping review

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

This report presents a scoping review of the literature and empirical evidence on minority ethnic people’s employment in the Scottish social housing sector. Stemming from the 2016 ‘Race Equality Framework for Scotland’, the December 2017 paper ‘Fairer Scotland for All: Race Equality Action Plan 2017—2021’ (REAP) sets out a series of actions to address racial inequality for minority ethnic communities residing in Scotland (Scottish Government 2017a). These actions cover different areas such as employment, education, health, and housing. The REAP puts forward the Scottish Government’s determination to advance race equality, addressing the different barriers minority ethnic communities face. The plan’s ultimate goal is to create a healthier, happier, and more egalitarian Scotland for everyone by 2030.

The project presented here was initially conceived in relation to the Year 2 progress update to the REAP published in early 2020. This update included a series of actions seeking to address racial inequality in employment. The action below is directly relevant to the housing sector and housing organisations:

We will also work with key housing stakeholders through the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Groups to explore what actions can be taken to address inequalities in the representation of minority ethnic people in employment in the housing sector, to ensure housing organisations reflect the wider communities in which they operate (Scottish Government 2020).

Employment had previously been identified as a key element in tackling racial inequality, as existing race-based discrimination in the labour market is a major restrictor to equal life opportunities. This has also been identified as having a cascade effect for the Scottish economy which does not fully benefit from the skills and expertise minority ethnic communities possess (Scottish Government 2017a).

In this regard, the main aspiration set out in the REAP was not simply to mobilise minority ethnic people into employment, but also to ensure that they are employed in jobs reflective of their skills, qualifications and experience and encounter fewer labour market, workplace and income inequalities. The proportion of minority ethnic individuals (defined here as ‘any individual not self-identified as ‘White: Scottish/British’) in the Scottish population has been rising; minority ethnic people accounted for 4.5% and 8.2% of Scotland’s population in 2001 and 2011 respectively and 12.9% in 2022 (National Records of Scotland 2024). Data from the Scottish Household Survey (2017—19) also show that households with a minority ethnic highest income householder (HIH) are more likely to have someone engaged in further or higher education: from 4% to 19% depending on ethnic group, compared to 1.5% of households with a ‘White: Scottish’ HIH (Scottish Government 2021c). Annual Participation Measure statistics from 2023 showed young people from minority ethnic groups were more likely to be in education (88.2%) than those who identified as white (70.1%) (Skills Development Scotland 2023). Recent UK level research has shown there has been an upward trend over time towards higher levels of educational achievement for many ethnic minority groups, and on many measures minority ethnic students now achieve higher levels of education than white students; although this is a complicated picture with considerable differences between specific ethnicities and age cohorts (Mirza & Warwick 2022). In dated research specific to the housing sector, it was found that holding other socio-demographic factors constant, minority ethnic groups’ educational attainment levels are higher than their white counterparts’ in some sectors within in housing (Worrall et al. 2007; Ahmed et al. 2008); and other evidence suggests that minority ethnic individuals in the UK are well-qualified to work skilled jobs in the housing sector (Caplan et al 2009).

Yet according to the most recently available statistics for Scotland’s labour market from the Annual Population Survey for January to December 2023, the employment rate gap between white groups and minority ethnic groups was 13.8 percentage points (pp). This figure is further contextualised by the significant gender and age differences in employment of minority ethnic groups: the employment rate gap between white and minority ethnic women was estimated at 13.3 pp and 14.1 pp for minority ethnic men; the ethnicity employment rate gap was largest for those aged 16 to 24 (26.8 pp) followed by those aged 25 to 34 (13.5 pp), whilst the gap for 35 to 49 year olds was 11.8 pp and the gap for those aged 50 to 64 was 2.5 pp (Office for National Statistics 2023).

Housing was another area identified as being of paramount importance to the REAP’s goals. Minority ethnic groups, compared to their white counterparts, are more likely to live in overcrowded homes concentrated in the private rented sector. Data from the 2011 Census^[1] showed that households classified as ‘White: Polish’, ‘Bangladeshi’, and ‘African’ possess the highest rates of over-crowding in Scotland. Oftentimes, this also means poorer housing quality, which negatively impacts on these groups’ wellbeing and both employment and life opportunities.

The intersection of employment and housing thus becomes an area of great importance for the successful implementation of the actions set out in the REAP. Moreover, these aims are also in line with the focus on minority ethnic employment in Scottish Government’s Housing to 2040 (Scottish Government, 2021d). Housing to 2040 is Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy and places special emphasis on situating all peoples and communities at the heart of building a happier, more vibrant country. This strategy highlights the need to create homes with easy access to employment opportunities, with social housing providers being significant actors in the effort to build community wealth. Housing to 2040 identifies minority ethnic groups as key targets for its equality-led approach, with a specific action in its route map to explore minority representation in the housing industry (Scottish Government, 2021e).

In 2021, the Scottish Government published a ‘Tackling race inequality in employment: statement’ committing to implement the recommendations stemming from the then Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee’s inquiry into race equality, employment and skills in the public sector, which highlighted both systemic issues, including institutional racism, perpetuating race inequality in recruitment practices and in workplaces, and the need to improve practices such as data gathering and analysis to monitor progress against measurable outcomes (Scottish Government 2021b).

As part of this commitment, in 2022 the Scottish Government published A Fairer Scotland for All: An Anti-Racist Employment Strategy to respond to the scale and challenge of institutional racism (Scottish Government 2022a). It provides practical advice, guidance and case studies to support and encourage employers across the economy to improve their policies and practices, data collection and usage, and workplace culture. It further sets out the actions the Scottish Government is taking to address inequalities for minority ethnic people in the labour market, including an evaluation of the Minority Ethnic Recruitment Toolkit published in 2020, and the development of an anti-racism workplace training framework. To deliver on the aim for Scotland to become a leading Fair Work nation by 2025, where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society, building the evidence base to understand the multiple barriers that affect experiences of work for minority ethnic people, and the variations between ethnic groups as well as intersectional inequalities, can help guide actions on how these can be addressed and how the impact of these actions can be measured. In 2023, the Scottish Government published Anti-Racism in Scotland: Progress Review (Scottish Government 2023a) to report on the commitments contained in the Race Equality Framework for Scotland 2016 to 2030 (Scottish Government 2016a) and the ongoing strategic work within Scotland’s public sector to better address racial inequality.

In 2021, as part of this ongoing work, the Scottish Government published an evidence review ‘Housing Needs of Minority Ethnic Groups’ exploring the needs and experiences of minority ethnic people in Scotland (Scottish Government 2021c). This work is intended as a companion to that review that will explore the rates of employment, opportunities and experiences of ethnic minority workers in the social housing sector.

1.2 The Scottish Social Rented Housing Sector (SRS)

Social housing in Scotland is housing owned and managed by public authorities (mainly local councils) and housing associations. Housing associations have long been major providers of social housing in the UK (Goodlad 1999); in Scotland, housing associations are usually referred to as registered social landlords or RSLs. RSLs have been designated public for the purposes of Freedom of Information requests and some duties, including those relating to equalities. However, they are private businesses who run their own operations via governing bodies and have their own organisational HR functions. This is crucial to note, as their private ownership status means they operate and are governed differently to local authority landlords as public bodies. As of March 2021, RSLs owned 292,591 of the 611,320 dwellings comprising the total Scottish social housing stock with the remainder owned by local authorities (Scottish Government 2024). RSLs vary considerably in size, with the smallest holding less than 200 properties and the largest holding stock of over 75,000. Job roles available in social housing are also varied; ‘housing management’ roles include housing officers, housing advice officers, tenant participation officers, anti-social behaviour officers, tenant arrears officers; ‘property management’ roles include health and safety compliance officers and repairs and servicing roles; and ‘resourcing’ roles include policy and strategy work, HR, marketing and communications, IT and finance. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) regulates all social housing in Scotland, which includes just under two hundred social landlords - 160 Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and 32 local authorities - overseen by a Board of non-executive members directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament.

1.3 Equality and diversity in employment within the Scottish SRS

Regardless of their size, registered social landlords and local authorities must comply with the Scottish Social Housing Charter (Scottish Government 2012). The charter includes responsibility for “finding ways of understanding the needs of different customers and delivering services that recognise and meet these needs”.

Scottish social landlords are also covered by aspects of the Equality Act 2010; the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 and in some cases the Human Rights Act 1998. This means they must have due regard to the promotion of equality and remove or minimise disadvantages where they can. This principal applies to social landlords’ staff, tenants, other service users and through the services they procure.

Under the Equality Act (2010) local authorities, as public bodies, are also required to publish information to show their compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, at least annually; and publish equality objectives, at least every four years. Because RSLs have a different status as private businesses they are not subject to this duty, although under their own governance arrangements many do elect to publish information regarding commitments to equality.

Social landlords make an Annual Return on the Social Housing Charter (ARC) to the SHR. When the Charter was introduced in 2012, the SHR collected the data on the ethnicity of existing tenants, new tenants and people on the waiting list for all social landlords; for housing associations they also collected ethnicity data for Board members and staff. The last collection year for these ethnicity indicators was 2018/9. When the SHR introduced a new Regulatory Framework in 2019, they stopped collecting this data directly and made it a requirement that landlords collect this data themselves and provide the SHR with an Annual Assurance Statement which confirms that they are meeting regulatory requirements, including those in relation to equalities, but landlords are not required to publish their data. Landlords are required to collect a full range of equalities data on their staff and governing body members (as well as on their tenants, other service users and people on housing waiting lists) and to consider this evidence base when taking decisions that materially affect some or all of these groups; the SHR worked with the sector to develop guidance on this data collection (Scottish Federation of Housing Associations et al 2021). The SHR note in their advisory guidance for landlords that human rights in housing is an area in development, and whilst it is to be expected that some landlords will be at an early stage of considering how to adopt a human rights approach, confirmation is sought through assurance statements that they are considering this, alongside how to take their data collection plans forward. The SHR recently released an updated Regulatory Framework for commencement from April 2024 and will initiate a comprehensive review of the Annual Return on the Charter and consult on this in 2025 (Scottish Housing Regulator 2024a; 2024b).

An SHR paper on the ‘Use of Equality and Diversity Statistics by Scottish Social Landlords: a thematic enquiry’ (Scottish Housing Regulator 2016) and SHR strategy documents and equalities statements note that a range of evidence shows achievement of social housing provider’s purposes is helped by having diverse staff teams and governing bodies to understand customers, staff and the wider environment in which they operate. Diversity can support effective ways of reaching, understanding, communicating with and overcoming specific barriers encountered by tenants with particular equality characteristics, leading to better service provision. With the release of their current Equalities Statement the SHR reaffirmed commitments to ensuring equality within its own organisation; the fourth objective in the ‘Equalities Statement 2023-2026’ (Scottish Housing Regulator 2023) states “We encourage diversity and promote equality as an employer, and our staff are knowledgeable on equality issues and how they impact on our work”. This is advanced through actions including provision of equalities training for staff overseen by a dedicated equalities lead, following equalities best practice in recruitment and the gathering of annual feedback through a staff survey which is published and acted upon. The equalities impact assessment accompanying the launch of the new Regulatory Framework (Scottish Housing Regulator 2024b) further recognises the role of intersectionality – a term used to refer to combinations of protected characteristics causing inequalities of power and experience^[2] – in shaping the experiences of people with simultaneous different protected characteristics (for example being minority ethnic and being female) which informs their approach to equality, diversity and protection from discrimination. The regulatory requirements require social landlords to pay due regard to eliminate discrimination, advance equality and foster good relations across the range of protected characteristics by taking a mainstreaming equalities approach throughout their overall strategies.

Minority ethnic employment in the social housing sector is the main focus of this report, however a section summarising some background evidence related to other areas of the housing sector, in particular the construction industry is also included because the literature includes useful context.

1.4 Structure and focus of this report

The remainder of this report opens with a brief examination of the available literature, including its limitations. It then provides an explanation of the search methodology and main terminology employed. A section considering the broader evidence regarding importance of tackling racism in the workplace; the wider background of social attitudes towards ethnic minority people in Scotland; and minority ethnic involvement in related housing fields are presented as context. The report then details the available evidence on minority ethnic employment in the social housing sector and concludes by highlighting the existing gaps in knowledge and suggesting potential areas for further research.

Two research questions informed the development of this review:

1. How many people from minority ethnic backgrounds are employed in the housing sector in Scotland, and to what extent are they employed in jobs that are appropriate to their qualifications and experience?

2. What barriers do minority ethnic groups face to employment in the social housing sector in Scotland?

In order to address these questions, the review aims to explore: levels of labour engagement in the social housing sector; potential discrimination against minority ethnic groups in social housing sector roles; and the degree to which minority ethnic individuals’ skills, qualifications, and experiences appropriately match their jobs in the context of their educational attainment. The review was also interested in whether literature existed that could give insight into what influence minority ethnic groups employed in the Scottish housing sector may have on the provision of housing and housing services for minority ethnic groups.

The scope of the review covers the whole of the UK, because there is a lack of evidence from academic research undertaken in Scotland. It is made clear throughout where evidence is UK-wide and where it applies to Scotland specifically. This limitation represents one of the findings of the review which is discussed in detail later in the report.