There's a better way than diversity training
Public sector wastes millions on misguided initiatives — better to spend it on low-earning staff
I relish all the opportunities to speak in public debates that come my way. But once in a while an event makes me uneasy. Perhaps the topic is a little unusual and I am to be the only woman on a panel. It’s not that I have any problem debating with men. Far from it. What makes me uncomfortable is the gnawing suspicion that I have been asked to participate because the organisers needed to tick a gender equality box.
Forbidden from having only male speakers, they have searched for a woman and landed on me. While the men can be confident their work has earned them a seat at the table, I’m left wondering if I am there because of my genitals. The push for diversity might have been well-intentioned but, in my case at least, it backfired.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives increasingly shape our experiences at work and our interactions with public services. Research by the Conservative Way Forward group of MPs shows that nearly 8,000 public sector workers are employed exclusively on EDI projects at a cost of £427 million a year. One million working days each year are spent on equality and diversity training.
The NHS is the biggest recruiter, with 800 people employed in EDI roles. Local authorities have 794 equality officers, universities are home to 724 and police forces have 250. A new report from the TaxPayers’ Alliance claims public sector prisons in England and Wales spent more than £11 million on EDI roles over the past two years.
Go back a couple of decades and the role of EDI officer simply did not exist. People worked in “human resources” and, before that, “personnel”. Yet since becoming established, the number of EDI appointments, and the money to fund them, has increased rapidly. Direct comparisons are difficult but back in 2013, the TaxPayers’ Alliance reported that the NHS employed 165 equality and diversity staff at a cost of £6.8 million; the 800 in such roles last year cost more than £40 million.