Amnesty International UK “exhibits institutional racism”, an independent investigation has found.

Last year, the Charity Commission commissioned an inquiry into the embattled charity in the wake of allegations of racism and a toxic culture by former staff and board members.

The watchdog’s final report is not due to be published until May. However, Global HPO, the consultancy carrying out the inquiry, has informally shared its initial findings with Amnesty UK.

In a statement, the charity said: “Global HPO’s view is that Amnesty UK exhibits institutional racism; and previously failed to properly embed equality, inclusion and anti-racism in its practices.”

It said there had been some improvements since last summer. However, it added that “significant progress is required” to the charity’s leadership, management and governance capabilities, the collection and evaluation of equality and diversity data, and “the working culture across the whole organisation”.

Culture of white privilege

The statement said that the inquiry had also called for improvements to the charity’s organisational infrastructure, learning and development, and updates to policies and procedures.

Last April, an internal review into Amnesty International’s secretariat found there was a culture of white privilege with incidents of overt racism, including senior staff using the N-word and micro-aggressive behaviour such as the touching of black colleagues’ hair.

It came as eight current and former employees of Amnesty UK described their own experiences of racial discrimination and issued a statement calling on senior figures to resign.

‘We have not been good enough’

Following the reports in The Guardian, representatives of both arms of the UK-based human rights organisation apologised and pledged to make changes, with the director of Amnesty UK citing “the uncomfortable fact that we have not been good enough”.

Sacha Deshmukh took up the role as interim chief executive of Amnesty UK last May, following the departure of Kate Allen, who stepped down four months before she had planned to, amid concerns that neither Amnesty’s international secretariat nor the UK arm were doing enough to combat institutional racism.

Mr Deshmukh said: “It is important that we recognise and clearly acknowledge that Amnesty UK did exhibit institutional racism, and over many years failed to properly embed equality, inclusion and anti-racism in its culture and practices. Staff and supporters have rightly expected, and deserved, better.

“Our values and mission must be at the heart of the working environment we offer to all our colleagues. We will be working closely with Global HPO during the final co-creation phase of their inquiry, to feed into their thinking on the actions that we need to take.”

‘We must prioritise anti-racism’

Dr Sen Raj, the chairman of the Amnesty UK Section board, said: “As an international human rights movement, we must prioritise anti-racism, and we must not underestimate the work needed to transform the working practices, activist dynamics and organisational culture of Amnesty UK.

“We are especially grateful to our staff and activists from global majority backgrounds who contribute their physical, emotional and intellectual labour to address institutional racism within our movement.

“We are looking forward to Global HPO’s report and recommendations in May, so we can add to, and accelerate, the anti-racism work we are doing.”

The initial phase of the inquiry included a review of recent policies and an analysis of employment data from 2017 to 2021. It also included one-to-one interviews and focus groups involving roughly 130 people, including 90 current staff members.

The second phase, currently under way, includes meetings with staff and board members to co-create solutions.

Further details of the required improvements are expected to be included in the final inquiry report.