To the Civil Service Club (last mentioned 8 April 2008) for a Seminar on Representation of British Indians in the Public Sector organised by Shaheed Nanak Singh Foundation. Speakers included chairman Dilip Joshi MBE (last mentioned 27 June 2008), patron Dr Rami Ranger MBE, Alok Mitra of the Ethnic Minority Business Group, Cllr Anjana Patel, Dr Kishna Sarda of the Ethnic Minority Foundation, Mark Laffan Director of headhunders Veredus, Mei Sim Lai Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, and Stephen Pound MP (last mentioned 23 April 2008). I also was invited to contribute a few words on young professionals' perceptions of working for the public sector which I transcribe here:

Through my role as chair of the City Hindus Network I have always maintained a focus on the issues that we have been discussing today.
Indeed during our launch event which was held in June 2006 I identified two damning statistics: (1) that only 3% of partners in the largest city law firms came from ethnic minorities, and (2) that there was only one non-white British born director in the FTSE100.
I doubt in the more than two years since then we have made much, if any, progress in these regards. However at the City Hindus Network we have begun to implement some initiatives to try and improve representation starting from the grass roots levels. For example we have recently piloted a mentoring scheme to help the development of young professionals from our community, and indeed some of the mentors are sitting with us today.
While the statistics show that our community makes a disproportionately large contribution to the economic, cultural and social life of this country, what I believe we really need is a future where minority communities in the UK have the opportunity to contribute to our great institutions as well, not only the boardrooms of our biggest companies, but also in the public sector, in our senior civil service from town hall to Whitehall, the officer classes of our armed forces, our police force, house of commons, judiciary, and so on.
So what are our young professionals’ perceptions of these public sector institutions in particular? Yes, they are seen as more bureaucratic than the private sector. But a bigger problem is that they are seen as less meritocratic. Whereas in the City, with the big bang, US institutions were able to bring a culture of ‘eat what you kill’, the impression is that it is far harder for minorities to get ahead in the public sector.
This must change, and it would certainly be helpful if the next generation of young people from our community had role models who they could identify with, and whose achievements in these areas they could look up to, follow and ultimately exceed.
But neither must we doubt their necessarily inherent ability to break the glass ceilings themselves. With the current crises that are raging it appears that the state will be playing a far bigger role in our economy going forward. We may even find that the new masters of the universe are the mandarins with their compensation which now often matches and sometimes even exceeds private sector pay, their greater job security, and their gold plated government backed final salary pensions.
In a curious cycle of action and reaction it is possible that the markets, the job market in particular – with more and more people from minorities forcing down the gates of a greatly attractive public sector – could provide the greatest impetus for movement on these issues of all.

To the offices of Mishcon de Reya (last mentioned 15 July 2008) for a fundraising event to mark a year in operation of Indian social entrepreneurship charity UnLtd India. The charity auction run by Alpesh Patel (last mentioned 17 June 2008) at the event was a great success and raised over £6,300. There were many other old friends and acquaintances in attendance as well – who I had an excellent time catching up with – and a few of us went for dinner together after the event finished.

To the Museum of London Docklands for the launch of the UK arm of the Indian sex trafficking prevention charity Odanadi which was timed to coincide with EU Anti Trafficking Day. Speakers at the event included ethical fashion designer Katharine Hamnett and Virendra Sharma MP a member of the Joint Committee for Human Rights. The event featured a photographic exhibition of trafficked women and children which the charity had rescued by fashion photographer Kristen Perers as well as music by classically trained Indian violinist Bhupinder Roopra.

To City Hall for the London Hindu community’s first official meeting with the new Conservative administration that has been installed following Boris Johnson’s victory in the Mayor of London elections. Community relations are being handled by Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes (last mentioned 8 April 2008) whose appointment was predicted in this blog. The main thrust of the meeting was to ensure that the promises made to our community prior to election – on which there has been negligible progress so far – are actioned. We hope that our next meeting at City Hall will be attended by the Mayor himself as well.

To Piya Piya for a party organised by Aekta Mahajan (last mentioned 7 May 2008) and some of her friends which raised over £3,000 for the Unique Home for girls orphanage in India. The very effective but subtle promotion strategy helped to create an unusually friendly atmosphere that I have not really come across at similar events. It was in all respects a great success.