Recruiters are "doing their bit" to attract candidates from diverse ethnic backgrounds, a senior Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) official claims.

REC acting chief executive Marcia Roberts' comment follows an announcement last week that companies that bid for lucrative Government contracts will be rejected if they do not employ enough black and Asian workers.

A committee, which includes seven ministers, has drawn up plans to question companies about their attitudes to race before deciding which to employ.

But Roberts told Recruiter that recruiters take on more diverse groups of candidates in order to fill vacancies in a tight labour market.

Roberts points to recent REC research showing that recruitment agencies place a higher number of ethnic minority candidates into work than those going through more traditional routes.

"In order to encourage recruitment agencies to be more active in this field, the REC launched a diversity pledge in association with Jobcentre Plus last year.

"The pledge commits agencies to actively seek more diverse pools of candidates and gives them the tools to do this through an online diagnostic," says Roberts.

The plans are the first time that "positive vetting" in procurement has been approved by a British government.

Iqbal Wahhab, chairman of Government-backed think-tank the Ethnic Minority Advisory Group, believes the new proposals will be a boon to the UK workforce: "These new procurement policies are required to assist employers in making more enlightened recruitment decisions. It may be unpopular in certain quarters, but the fact is we should not have been in this position in the first place."

Government figures recently showed that people from ethnic minorities are twice as likely to be unemployed as the white majority.