Black Britain under-represented in Civil Service

New figures have revealed that black applicants to Britain’s Civil Service fast track scheme are the least likely to succeed.

According to a report in the Independent newspaper, black applicants have less than a one in a 100 chance of being recruited.

Last year the Civil Service took on less than five black people to its "fast stream" recruitment scheme out of over 450 black-African applicants. In contrast, white applicants had a 1 in 20 chance of being accepted into the scheme – a success rate four times higher.

Tottenham MP and former Labour minister David Lammy, who was patron of a mentoring scheme for ethnic minority civil servants said the figures were deeply worrying: "The people who are recruited into fast stream are the next generation of Permanent Secretaries and if we are not able to recruit young black people into the Civil Service today then it will a detrimental effect long into the future," he said.

However senior civil servants have blamed a lack of educational achievements by black applicants as we the reason for the low numbers.

Research shows that black students are less than two-thirds as likely to get an upper-second or first as white students.

The poor recruitment figures in the Civil Service fast track stream come just days after it emerged that 21 Oxford and colleges made no offers to black students last year. Merton College in Oxford has admitted no black students in the last five years and just one in the last decade.