Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2016
Work with employers is part of the action plan, because it is employers who we need to persuade of the benefits of making sure that we have a more diverse population in the MA programme. That is at the heart of the action plan.
I have spoken about the targets that have been set, which are challenging, and I have also said that they will not be reached overnight. However, progress is already being made following the publication of the action plan. We have already seen some improvement in the proportion of starts by people reporting a disability—three percentage points up on the same point last year—and we have also seen a slight improvement in those who report as coming from a minority ethnic group.
There is a lot of work still to be done, but those figures are promising. The work that is set out in the equalities action plan gives me confidence that we will see further progress in the years to come.