Lack of progress on Protestant recruitment

THE Housing Executive’s recent recruitment of staff in Londonderry and Omagh - areas with large Roman Catholic populations - contributed to a lack of progress in increasing the number of Protestant appointments across the agency.

Social Development Minister Alex Attwood said the impact of the Housing Executive’s voluntary redundance scheme was also having a disproportionate impact on people from a Protestant background.

He outlined the difficulties in addressing the disparity in recruitment in response to an Assembly Question from DUP MLA Sydney Anderson.

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Mr Anderson specifically wanted to know why there was a gap in the recruitment of people from Protestant and Roman Catholic backgrounds to its Craigavon office.

But Mr Attwood explained a number of factors were contributing to the disproportionately lower recruitment of Protestants across the entire Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE).

He stated: “During the last five years the opportunity for recruitment activity in the Housing Executive has been severely restricted due to the need to deliver efficiency savings in running costs through the reduction in staffing levels.”

He added: “The Housing Executive is employing what the Equality Commission considers to be best practice and what is recognised as being part of international best practice.

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“It so happens that fewer people are moving from one place of work to another and areas of recruitment in the Housing Executive in recent times have included Derry and Omagh.

“Given the religious profile of the communities in those areas, and given the fact that an in-house voluntary redundancy scheme has had a disproportionate impact on people from Protestant backgrounds, progress that could be made is not being made in respect of creating overall balance. “This is further compounded by the number of retirements in the organisation from the Protestant community.”

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