'Equality' questions in job applications.

[lankybob]

Whilst applying foe a year in industry at JLR for next year I have been asked to provide information for the following:
Gender, ethnicity and nationality.
The sentence which came before these questions was something along the lines of 'In the interests of equality can you answer the following questions?'
I was asked these questions when applying for an apprenticeship at Bentley before I came to university and I will no doubt be asked them again when I apply for some more placements.

The point of this post is that surely if they were giving everyone and equal opportunity for the job they would not ask these questions, the interviews would be offered to the best candidates and not those who happen to come from another country or something like that. The interview would be given to you for your abilities and qualifications, ethnicity, nationality and gender are completely irrelevant when creating 'equal opportunities' when applying for a job aver the internet.
Am I wrong?

This may have been covered many times before but the search isn't working.

Cheers,
Bob

[c8bof]

Usually you will find that these questions will be on a part of the form which can be separated from the relevant information about your skills and experience. The interviewers generally don't get this information to try to prevent bias of any sort. It's usually detailed in the blurb somewhere that this info is for statistical use only?

[rog007]

...unless they have a positive discrimination policy.

[c8bof]

Positive discrimination still unlawful in the UK. Positive action is lawful but wouldn't usually be achieved in this way - i.e. it would be more obvious!

[Engineer1]

They will be for tracking purposes and be separated from the forms the recruiter in the organisation sees. They may well be used to track how well adverts are attracting minorities or if they are appealing to the under represented sex etc.

[paulrockliffe]

Or if there was an accusation that the company was racist because it didn't employ anyone of a certain ethnicity; they would want to be able to show that no one of that ethnicity had applied for a job with them as a starting point.

[rog007]

c8bof said:

Positive discrimination still unlawful in the UK.

...in most circumstances. "However, section 13 of the Equality Act 2010 does permit some exclusions from this in respect of direct discrimination. For example, in respect of disability, section 13(3) states that “if the protected characteristic is disability, and B is not a disabled person, A does not discriminate against B only because A treats or would treat disabled persons more favourably than A treats B” – this allows the person A to discriminate in favour of disabled people."

See: The Equality Act 2010 and positive action.
24 October 2011
http://www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/...