I haven't come across this but there has been a recent post about this on the CIPD facebook page, which got a lot of opinions.
I can kind of see the point but only if the organisations are planning to use the data to improve social inclusion, e.g. by bringing in apprenticeships or promoting job roles in inner city schools.

In reply to Elizabeth:

Which parents as well

From my point of view depending on how i answered it could paint a totally different picture

I could say "at age 14 my Father was a Farmer and my mother looked after the books of the farm whilst I was boarding at a public school"
or equally truthfully I could say
"At age 14 my mother wasn't in paid work and my birth father was a self employed white goods repairman, I was on a totally free supported place at a charity run residential school"

As it was my school was hugely supportive on the arts with a huge theatre and art school with one of my classmates now running a theatre based charity in the NE but I know he was also on an assisted place.

My instinctive response would be that most arts organisations would be too small to be statistically relevant on an organisational level. This feels more relevant to a survey of the profession as a whole than to monitor whether this orchestra or that art gallery are being inclusive. The numbers could be so small as to distort the findings.

It feels like a worthy goal, but not the right question and not the right format.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't complete it on an equal ops section of a recruitment form, without a good explanation about how it would be used.

I think its a worthwhile question and may help measure social mobility

I think its worth including but take up might be quite low without an education campaign

In reply to Elizabeth:

Thanks Elizabeth. Sadly, I think this is a little bit of naval gazing by the professional body rather than actively using the data productively. The onus seems to be on the organisation developing their equality objectives and action plans so that they can work towards diversifying their audiences and workforce. Which completely supports Nina's view (see comment below) that individual organisation reporting could distort the findings.

In reply to Ian:

Thanks Ian, that's a point that I hadn't considered. As you would expect the 'answers' are quite vague (modern professional/ traditional professional) and a tick box approach. I'm struggling to see the value of this particular question set and I am sure not many people will complete it - partly because there is no guidance behind each category.

In reply to Nina Waters:

Thanks Nina, I agree regarding the statistical relevance however as part of their funding, they need to include it. Based on the responses on this chat, I think I can at least influence the form for the organisation I am working with to at least give some context to why the question is being asked.

This is standard data that Arts Council England are asking all the organisations that they are funding to report on. I don't see socio-economic status as any different to the other types of equality data that organisations tend to collect as standard these days. As long as you explain why you are collecting it ( as a condition of your funding) and how it will be used (anonymised for reporting purposes only), I'm sure people won't have a problem with it. In my previous organisation (an ACE NPO organisation) we collected it from staff and applicants from 2021 onwards and had no queries and nearly 100% return rate. Obviously everyone had the option to chose 'Prefer Not Say' and some people did utilise that but no one protested against it.

Hi Sheryl,

I have seen similar in my work with HETV productions, and always I shake my head over a noble initiative being carried out with zero consideration of data protection legislation.

I would recommend anonymous completion as fat as possible, bearing in mind how people's identities can be inferred or deduced from information where the pool of respondents is very small.

I'd push back on anything that potentially links past family or socioeconomic information with individuals - it's still possible to get the information they want, but it is a legal requirement that this be done in a privacy-centric way.

Have you asked the professional body for a copy of their data protection impact assessment (DPIA) on this initiative? Chances are you'll get a blank stare in response to that one, but perhaps you could approach the DPIA jointly to risk assess it and find the best way forward.

The Information Commissioner's Office has lots of guidance on profiling and monitoring of workers information, including gathering and using special category data. The also explain DPIAs, along with providing a template DPIA form that can be downloaded:

ico.org.uk/.../

ico.org.uk/.../

ico.org.uk/.../dpia-template.docx