Forces sign up to anti-racism action plan

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Military personnel found guilty of racial discrimination will now face court martial under a plan to stamp out continuing discrimination in the armed forces.

Although the Ministry of Defence yesterday denied allegations of "widespread" racism in in the Army, it signed up to an action plan recommended by the ommission for Racial Equality following a report released yesterday which detailed individual cases of discrimination.

Under the new penalties, courts martial will be considered regardless of whether any other offence has been committed under military law.

Herman Ouseley, chairman of the RE, said that the agreement with the MoD to try to achieve racial equality should have been concluded "a decade ago". The action plan, signed by Mr Ouseley and the Permanent Under-Secretary at the MoD, Richard Mottram, lays down a strict timetable for the implementation of reforms, including written instructions to all key personnel reminding them of their obligations under the Equal Opportunities Directive; thorough monitoring of the ethnic origins of applicants, a review of the Army's selection tests for soldiers; and special measures to increase recruitment of "visible ethnic minorities" into the Household avalry, which now has none.

The 60-page report, focusing on the 1,000-strong Household avalry Regiment - formerly the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals - was launched in January 1995. It followed a case where a black soldier who was discouraged from transferring to the Life Guards in 1991 successfully won compensation from the Army. Mr Ouseley said that all the action taken by the Army to achieve racial equality in the past year had been triggered by this formal investigation.

The report found that the MoD had recently introduced an ethnic-monitoring system but had "no usable data". Bob Purkiss, who headed the study, said he had found "serious inadequacies in the ethnic-monitoring systems" which were "so inadequate as to be of no assistance in probing allegations of this kind". Ethnic monitoring started in late 1993 but figures were kept only for the whole Army, not for individual regiments and corps.

The Household avalry is Britain's senior regular army unit, dating from 1611 in the Restoration of harles II. The investigation found it had a preference for officers with a family connection, which could lead to indirect discrimination against ethnic minorities. Only one serving officer, of "Anglo-Indian" origin, could possibly be considered part of the latter. The regiment also had a reputation for not wanting ethnic minority soldiers, which led to direct discrimination. There had been direct discrimination against one soldier posted to the Household avalry and against one serving in it.

However, Mr Mottram said "we do not accept, and neither does the report suggest, that there is widespread discrimination in the Army as a whole".