Equality information pattern using potentially out of date examples

[edwardhorsford]

I understand (via @StephenGill ) that the equality information pattern is based on the GSS Ethnicity harmonised standard

The standard looks to be published in 2011, 10 years prior to the 2021 Census.

The above page looks to be outdated. You can find the latest version here.

On the updated site, there's a section noting that the standard is being updated and that for new equality monitoring services should use the Census 2021 options (more detail below).

Should the Design system examples be updated?

Relevant excerpts from the GSS guidance linked above:

This means that the 2021 and 2022 Census questions are the most up to date way of collecting data about ethnic group at the moment. But the question development for these approaches began in 2015 and we are aware that user needs may have changed since then.

You should use the current ethnicity harmonised standard for existing data collections until we have finished our review. If you’re planning to include a new ethnicity question in your data collection and cannot wait for our review work to be completed, we recommend that you use the questions from the:

• 2021 Census for England and Wales
• current ethnicity harmonised standard for Northern Ireland
• 2022 Census for Scotland (2022 Census for Scotland ethnic group: guidance)

[edwardhorsford]

I raise this originally because I noted the 2021 Census included an option for Roma that was missing from the Design System example - and I wanted to find out why there was a discrepancy.

Given the GSS guidance to follow the 2021 Census for new ethnicity questions, I think the best thing to do is for teams to follow the 2021 Census options - including Roma.

[edwardhorsford]

Related: I wonder if an interim step could be to preface the equality pattern with some of the current content from the GSS standard to state that it may be appropriate to use the Census, etc.

[frankieroberto]

Worth noting that the 2021 England and Wales census also included an additional write-in (with an autocomplete) question for the Black African ethnic group. This may require an autocomplete component to be added to the Design System.

[frankieroberto]

See also this currently-open consultation on Standards for ethnicity data, which explicitly references the GOV.UK Design System pattern.