Democracy - Commission for Racial Equality - Elections Of the 214 people currently elected to the London Assembly, Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, only two belong to an ethnic minority, and only 4.1% of local councillors come from an ethnic minority background. The situation is no better in Westminster: at the current rate of progress, we will not elect a House of Commons that accurately reflects Britain’s population until 2080.

People from ethnic minorities are also less likely to vote in elections and less likely to be registered to vote: in the 2005 general election,voter turnout was 47% for ethnic minority voters, as opposed to 61% among the population as a whole. According to estimates by the Electoral Commission and the Office of National Statistics, 10% of the eligible population in England and Wales are not registered to vote, and the figure may be as much as 18% in London.

People from ethnic minority groups are almost three times more likely to be unregistered than white people. There is evidence of varying interest in politics and voting between people from different ethnic backgrounds: an Electoral Commission / MORI survey in 2005 found that people of Indian (67%), Pakistani (70%) and Bangladeshi (76%) origin were all more likely to say they had voted than white people (62%). Black people (54% and 61% for those of African and Caribbean heritage respectively) were less likely to claim to vote, and only 40% of mixed-race respondents said they had voted.

From recent research we commissioned on civic participation (carried out by IDeA), black Britons appear to be less likely to be actively involved in civil renewal activities than the population as a whole. Only 42% of black British citizens said they would be willing to get involved and only 36% of Britons of Asian origin said they would take an active role in local activities. Similarly, only 20% of black Britons would consider taking part in civic consultations, while just 16% of British Asians would do so.

Our work so far - We worked with Operation Black Vote and other organisations in setting up a shadowing schemes in government for young people during 2005/6, to help them to learn more about our democratic institutions. Since the London bombings of 7/7, we have monitored the activities of extremist groups as well as community tensions. In the run-up to the May 2007 local elections, we used our regional network to share monitoring information

We worked with the Local Government Information Unit, the Local Government Association, the Improvement and Development Agency, Unison, the Standards Board and the Department for Communities and Local Government on a work programme tackling myths, misinformation and extremism. We held two training seminars prior to the 2007 local elections for local authority communications officers and lawyers

The challenges ahead - How do we change our political institutions to make sure they reflect the wide and diverse voices and experiences of Britain’s population, particularly marginalised groups and young people? While there has been some welcome work to raise the numbers of women in politics, little has changed in relation to ethnicity. We also need to find ways of raising the levels of people who are both registered to vote and who do so, to involve all Britons in the democratic process

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Please note that each Thursday a new Justice video will be released, and at the end of the series all 12 will be publicly available.