A specialist recruitment agency launched earlier this month has admitted it was legally wrong in asking only ethnic minority candidates to apply.

Rare Recruitment had to remove the mission statement from its website two weeks ago because of the error, in which the company claimed to be the preserve of graduates from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Managing director Raphael Mokades admitted to the mistake, which would have made the group's activities unlawful.

“We've now broadened this to say we specialise in high-quality new graduates and also specialise in those with ethnic minority backgrounds,” he told Recruiter.

Fiona Coombe, director of legal services at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, says agencies cannot specifically offer their services to one particular racial group.

“Under the Race Relations Act 1976, it's unlawful for an employment agency to discriminate against users or potential users of their services by refusing or deliberately not providing them with any services,” she said.

However, Jonathan Baldry, chief executive of Talent, one of the largest diversity recruiters in the UK, believes that although Rare Recruitment made a legal error, it answered an important need to attract more diverse candidates.

“Too much has been made of this issue. Targeting ethnic minority backgrounds and telling white people not to apply are two different things,” he said.