About the Positive Action Placement
Warwickshire County Council’s overall vision is ‘Working in Partnership to Put
Customers first; Improve Services & Lead Communities’ and in particular the
Museum Service is committed to ‘Strengthening our Communities and Celebrating
our Heritage’.
As part of its overall work of caring for collections and safeguarding Warwickshire’s
material, cultural and natural heritage, the museum tries to offer a range opportunities to all
kinds of volunteers, placements and secondments. This Positive Action Trainee Placement is
one of those. We have teamed up with the regional agencies Renaissance West
Midlands and MLAWestMidlands to offer a 12 week placement to someone from a
Black or Minority Ethnic background.
The placement on offer is based in Warwick at the Market Place Museum and the Historic
Environment Record (both part of the Warwickshire Museum Service) and the independent
museum of the Queens Own Hussars, which is situated in the nearby mediaeval building
Lord Leysters Hospital.
The successful candidate will be primarily attached to the Community Museum Officer,
Glynis Powell. Her job is to provide advice, support and development aid to all museums in
the county, Coventry and Solihull. This can range from village-based voluntary groups
looking after collections to the, world class, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. During the
period, the placement will accompany Glynis working on a range of office and community
based activities with a selection of these groups. Additionally approximately a third of the
time will be spent with the Historic Environment Record Manager and another third with
the Queens Own Hussars.
By the end of the placement the Trainee will have experienced a range of activities and
environments in the museum development and heritage world.
Please note: The offices at the Warwickshire Museum and the museum of the Queens
Own Hussars are in protected historic buildings. We endeavour to make reasonable
adjustments to include everyone, however access to them is currently by stairs only.
Why Positive Action
Research undertaken in 2005 by the Museums Association demonstrated that less than
3% of the national museum workforce is drawn from BME backgrounds, whilst according to
the 2001 census, 13% of the English population is of non-White, non-British origin.
In the area of Museum Development (in this county the post is called Community Museum
Officer) the percentage nationally is even lower; 0%.
In order that museums might continue to reflect the communities which they aspire to
represent it is essential that staff embrace new, more diverse ways of interpreting their
collections and working with external groups. As part of the process the workforce itself
needs to become more diverse.
Renaissance West Midlands, part of MLA’s groundbreaking programme to transform
England’s regional museums, is supporting diversity in the workforce by funding 7 separate
12 week positive Action Traineeship (PAT) placements in non-Hub museums across the
region. The aim is to enable trainees from BME background to gain a genuine insight into
and experience of the museum workplace as preparation for applying to enter the
profession.
Please note this placement does not lead to any further contract or post within
the County Council or other institution. The placement will, however, receive
appropriate career advice and information.
What is Positive Action
The term Positive Action was first used in the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act and then
again in the 1976 Race Relations Act.
The Commission for Racial Equality defines positive action as follows:
“The aim of positive action is to ensure that people from previously excluded ethnic minority
groups can compete on equal terms with other applicants. It is intended to make up for the
accumulated effects of the past discrimination. Selection itself must be based on merit and
treat all applicants equally. The law does not compel employers to take positive action, but it
allows them to do so.”
Essentially, the purpose of the Positive Action training scheme is to equip people from Black
and Minority Ethnic groups to acquire the skills, knowledge and experience they need to be
able to apply for jobs on a more equal basis in the open market.
Positive action allows the employer to:
Target job training at those racial groups that are under-represented in a particular area
of work (refer to section 37(1) of the Race Relations Act 1976)
That at any time within the previous 12 months there were no members of a particular racial
group engaged in particular work in Great Britain, or that the proportion of persons of that
racial group among those engaged in such work was small in comparison with the proportion of
persons of that group in the population of Great Britain. In these circumstances it is lawful for
that body to discriminate in or in connection with limiting access to training for such work to
that racial group, or to take steps to encourage members of that racial group to take advantage
of opportunities for doing that work.
Race Relations Act 1976, Section 37(1)
More information
For more information about the placement please ring
Emma Jones, Historic Environment Manager, 01926 412734
Or
Glynis Powell, Community Museums Officer, 01926 418267
To order a recruitment pack please contact Gillian Holloway, 01926 412500, or
museum@warwickshire.gov.uk
For more information about the scheme and museums, libraries and archives visit
www.renaissancewestmidlands.org.uk,
www.mlawestmidlands.co.uk or contact Mark Hinsley, Workforce Development Officer,
0121 303 5819, mark.hinsley@mlewestmidlands.co.uk
For more information about issues of the museum workforce visit the Museums
Association website www.museumsassociation.org