Page 37 - Judicial Diversity Update report

The Parole Board recently launched a recruitment campaign to improve the
diversity of its members and to bring a greater range of perspectives and
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experience to its decision making. The Board acknowledged the disparity
between BAME Parole Board members and the prison population from a BAME
background, and recognised the importance of the Parole Board as a public facing
body to reflect the community it serves – following the Lammy Review. The
Board used several strategies to reach out to people from all backgrounds,
including: hosting outreach events; promoting the campaign online and on social
media; and improving its partnerships. Through raising awareness of the issue,
attracting greater interest in roles from those who have a BAME background and
encouraging high calibre applicants to apply, the Parole Board achieved an
increase in diversity; it tripled the number of BAME Parole Board members and
increased its overall percentage of BAME members from under 5% to 13%. We
acknowledge, of course, the differences in eligibility and recruitment between
the judicial role and the parole board role, which impacts upon the ability to
improve diversity over a short period of time. However, the Parole Board’s
commitment to meaningful action to correct the demographics of its membership
is highly commendable.

Working Age Population

Over the last two years both the JAC and the judiciary’s diversity statistics have
referenced the demographics of the ‘working age population’ when trying to
contextualise the findings regarding judicial diversity for ethnicity (albeit with
some moderation of approach in the most recent publications (2018-2019)). The
position put forward is that the proportion of the working age population who are
BAME generally decreases with age. As most judges are over 40 (and half over
60) a low proportion of BAME judges is to be expected, particularly at senior
levels.
However, in our view it is odd to use the percentage of BAME individuals in the
working age population as a comparator for the proportion of BAME judges.
Despite difficulties with estimating the actual eligible pool (we appreciate that
not everyone who meets the minimum eligibility requirements will in fact have
the suitable experience, skills or desire for a role), the proportion of BAME

because they are Jewish. They gave examples of colleague who had done the same the past. This can
have the effect of overstating the number of BAME judges as the term is understood by the public.
84 Martin Jones, ‘The Parole Board is implementing Lammy’, Russell Webster, September 2019,
available online at http://www.russellwebster.com/martinjones6/
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