• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

MayorWatch

London News and Comment

  • NEWS
  • Twitter

City Hall’s online focus group contains too few BME and unemployed Londoners and social housing tenants

July 4, 2018 - Martin Hoscik@MayorWatch

Mayor Sadiq Khan has approved spending on a series of advertising campaigns designed to boost the diversity of City Hall’s online ‘Talk London’ community after an audit found BME Londoners and social tenants are significantly underrepresented in its user-base.

The community exists “to help steer the policy decisions of the future – on housing, the environment, transport, safety, jobs and more” through online discussions and surveys.

On sign-up, members are asked to provide details of their gender, ethnicity, housing tenure, occupation or education status, and age “so that we can aim to make sure all sections of London’s population are represented.”

However a breakdown of user demographics released in response to a Freedom of Information request reveals that the almost 45,000 user-base varies significantly from London’s population in several key areas.

Despite official figures showing that around 23% of Londoners live in a local council or housing association property, this is true of just 7.7% of Talk London members.

The FOI response also reveals that white Londoners are significantly over-represented, making up almost 84% of all users despite around 40% of Londoners coming from a BME background.

Unemployed Londoners are also under-represented, making up 2.2% of users versus the ONS estimating that this group accounts for 5.2% of the population.

These variances raise the risk that City Hall is failing to hear from some of the groups most affected by the Mayor’s policies aimed at boosting the supply of affordable housing and tackling inequality.

Last week Mr Khan approved up to £240,000 of funding for up to five advertising campaigns – the first of which is expected to launch this September – which will be targeted at those groups which are under-represented in the Talk London user-base.

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

RECENT UPDATES

Tube and rail users to benefit from Oyster weekly fares cap

Mayor and TfL call on ministers to help plug funding gap

Tube to get full mobile phone coverage from 2024

TfL says Direct Vision Standard is already making HGVs safer for London road users




POPULAR

City Hall to move to Docklands as Mayor seeks to raise £55m for frontline services

‘Concern’ over TfL’s ability to deliver major projects in wake of Crossrail cost overruns

City Hall halts London Overground ticket office closures but many will still see opening hours reduced

Transport for London confirms bus cuts will go ahead despite passenger opposition

GOT A STORY?

As the original London news and scrutiny site we've been casting an eye over the capital's public services and politicians since 1999.

 

Many of our top stories started with a tip-off from a reader - if you've got something you'd like us to cover get in touch and we'll do the rest.

Stay In Touch

  • E-mail
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy