The purpose of this report is to lay the ground for a country built on the full participation and trust of all communities. We envisage a country more at ease with itself because it can recognise where progress has been made. One that is confident that, where unequal access to opportunity persists, whether among inner city ethnic minorities or the left-behind from the ethnic majority, it is being addressed.

We do not believe that the UK is yet a post-racial society which has completed the long journey to equality of opportunity. And we know, too many of us from personal experience, that prejudice and discrimination can still cast a shadow over lives. Outright racism still exists in the UK, whether it surfaces as graffiti on someone’s business, violence in the street, or prejudice in the labour market. It can cause a unique and indelible pain for the individual affected and has no place in any civilised society.

But we have ensured our analysis has gone beyond these individual instances, to carefully examine the evidence and data, and the evidence reveals that ours is nevertheless a relatively open society. The country has come a long way in 50 years and the success of much of the ethnic minority population in education and, to a lesser extent, the economy, should be regarded as a model for other White-majority countries.

In addition, our enquiries have also underlined to us that the roots of advantage and disadvantage for different groups are complex, and often as much to do with social class, ‘family’ culture and geography as ethnicity. We have tried to understand the drivers of ethnic difference in the UK and, where necessary, propose ways to address them. The data collected over 5 years now by the government’s Race Disparity Unit has given us a new opportunity to be led by the evidence.

This report seeks to approach the issues of racial and ethnic disparities in a balanced way, highlighting both the success stories that the data reveals as well as delving into what lies beneath some of the most persistent and enduring ones. As such, its findings and recommendations may be surprising to some and thought-provoking to others. Either way, we have gone as far as the available evidence and time would allow.

This report makes 24 recommendations. These are grouped into 4 broad themes:

• build trust

• promote fairness

• create agency

• achieve inclusivity

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