Are you a civil servant wasting too much time on EDI, abusing your position as a ‘servant’ and comprimising productivity? Of course as a servant you will not be allowed to answer that here.

I hasten to add that no productivity was harmed in the writing of this post: I am doing it on a Sunday. You see according to the MP for the town near where I live “When I was in the private sector, these activities were things that we did at breakfast before we started work and in the evenings, and that to me is where the orientation of these things should be headed.” He says he has seen diversity projects mushroom. Some officials it seems are “using their jobs as a vehicle for political activism”.

He acknowledges that the Civil Service has made “significant progress in making itself representative of the country it serves”. So what, then, is this review really all about? We’re in the middle of the current Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2025 which says in its Foreword:

“We will develop an ethos of a connected government across the UK – with career opportunities in every part of the country open to all, a dismantling of barriers and a willingness to question how we can best channel our efforts to help all citizens tackle disadvantage in their daily lives. We will guarantee fairness at work, take a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and discrimination and grow a culture that welcomes challenge and demands rigour in how we assess delivery for citizens, with civil servants managed against how they perform not how they look, who they are or where they work.”

Could it be that civil servants are embracing this with too much commitment and enthusaism and losing sight of their obligation to do the will of parliament, as Mr Glen reminds them? Well certainly the right wing newspapers have embraced headlines to suggest concern. In November the Dail Mail ran the headline “Jeremy Hunt to step up the war on ‘woke’ civil service jobs”. The Telegraph ran a headline a year ago saying “One million civil service days a year ‘wasted on equality and diversity training’”.

I can’t seem to get past the soundbytes concerning this review to really understand what the hell is going on. But as a country we have a long way to go on EDI. This is not just a fad over fairness that should be consigned by productivity warriors to the evenings.

Let’s hope this review and those commissioning and conducting it abide by the Principles of Public Life and offer us a report that reflects selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to be able to see the thought bubbles of civil servants over this matter? I had the privilege of speaking alongside Georgia Yexley on Friday and she shared with us a quote from her grandmother (which I hope she won’t mind me repeating because it matters): “if something must be heard, it must be said”. Indeed.

#civilservice#equalitydiversityinclusion#productivity