Author(s)

Ayodeji Bayo Ogunrotifa

Department of Law and Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London, RHUL, London, UK.

This paper critically reviews the 2021 report of the UK government on racial and ethnic disparities (which was tagged the “Sewell’s report”). The Sewell’s commission investigated the current dynamics of racial and ethnic disparities in the UK in four key areas: education and training; employment, fairness at work and enterprise; crime and policing; and health. It reported not only interesting findings and conclusions, but also recommended series of policy measures under four broad themes: building trust; promoting fairness; creating agency; and achieving inclusivity. A critical review of the report revealed a series of fundamental, preliminary, and substantive issues that undermine the credibility of its findings, conclusion, and recommendations. These issues, which are constitutional problematic, problem definition, biased methodology, skewed findings, and inaccurate conclusions, questioned the substance of the commission’s report, and fostered effective grounds for critics and oppositions to question the acceptability and legitimacy of the panel or commission’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations. These issues largely emanated from the composition of the commissioners, which lacked technical knowledge and social scientific understanding of racism as a conceptual frame to investigate racial and ethnic disparities, and thus produced a shoddy report that did not reflect the realities and lives of Black and other minority ethnic groups in the UK.

Racism, BAME, Racial and Ethnic Disparities, Racialisation, Sewell’s Report

Ogunrotifa, A. (2022) What a Shoddy Job: A Critical Review of the 2021 Report of the UK Government on Racial and Ethnic Disparities. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 10, 1-22. doi: 10.4236/jss.2022.104001.