The government is to write to the top 100 law firms asking them to put information on the ethnic makeup of their staff on their Web sites - but has rejected a more radical recommendation that it should make publishing ethnic data a pre-requisite for any firm wishing to tender for government work, it emerged this week.

Yvonne Brown, chairwoman of the Black Solicitors Network, said it was 'extremely disappointing' that the government had not taken up the advice of the independent Legal Services Consultative Panel.


The panel had recommended in September that only law firms that provided information on the ethnicity of staff should be invited to tender for government work (see [2005] Gazette 29 September 1). In its response, released this week, the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) said that EU rules prevented it from taking up the recommendation, which also 'may have a disproportionate effect on small firms' because of the increased bureaucracy involved.


Ms Brown said: 'It is extremely disappointing that the government has chosen not to proceed with proposals for diversity monitoring [for public contracts]. We would welcome further dialogue on how it could be fairly implemented to address the concerns of smaller firms.'


The DCA said it would write to the top 100 law firms and top 30 chambers, and then to smaller firms.