BBC pressed on racial equality targets

The Commission for Racial Equality chairman, Trevor Phillips, is to call on the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, to enforce strict new rules on the BBC's employment of black and ethnic minorities.

Mr Phillips wants the BBC to be subject to an amendment to the race relations act requiring it to publish information on training, retention rates and complaints, as well as data it already provides on targets and recruitment.

"The duty would make them subject to regulation by the CRE in terms of their programmes for promotion of ethnic minorities - to some extent, the balance of what they broadcast and to a large extent, what they do on training and how they treat different ethnic groups among their staff," Mr Phillips told the BBC's inhouse magazine, Ariel.

"Ultimately, as we have done with the police, we could take compliance action against them."

The BBC currently employs 10.2% of its staff from black and ethnic minorities, and 5.2% of its senior management. Targets for the end of 2007 are 12.5% and 7% respectively.

Mr Phillips said the BBC's targets were still too low.

"It's fine for [the BBC director of television] Jana Bennett to aim for a 10% target on screen, of characters and contributors, because that chimes with, or even exceeds, the percentage of minorities in the national audience.

"But on employment, the pool from which the BBC draws two-thirds of its staff [in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester] is one-third ethnic minority.

"Do the sums: 10.2% is way underperforming. It's not hideous, but it's not good."

Mr Phillips said BBC News was in danger of failing to address its black and Asian audience because of the under-representation of ethnic minorities.

"There's a whole panoply of rules that govern BBC journalism, all directed to one end, which is to tell the story fairly and comprehensively," he said.

"People tend to focus on that in party political terms, but actually, in modern Britain, the more serious bias is about whether huge chunks of the community are not having their voices heard or their perspectives addressed.

"Newsrooms which are monocultural are in danger of being like comedy that isn't funny. Without cultural knowledge, you don't ask the right questions.

"You can be the most brilliant interviewer, but if the team that's briefing you has no idea about the influence of South Asian culture [in] west London, you can conduct interviews there in the most profound ignorance of what most matters.

"This is not about doing the job better, it's about whether you can do the basic job at all."

The BBC's head of diversity, Andrea Callender, told Ariel: "According to the 2001 census, the percentage of black and minority ethnic people in the UK is 8%. The 12.5% target for 2007 was set by the executive board in recognition that many parts of the BBC are based in metropolitan areas where there is a higher proportion of black and minority ethnic people in the local population."