Mark Sedwill, permanent secretary at the Home Office, has commissioned an academic study into staff development and performance management after staff expressed fears that a “glass ceiling” is preventing ethnic minority staff from reaching top civil service positions.
“We cannot identify overt barriers, but clearly black and minority ethnics feel there are glass ceilings that they are just not getting through,” he told the Times newspaper on Monday.
Sedwill commissioned Kathlyn Wilson, an academic and member of the Department for Work & Pensions ethnic minority employment stakeholder group, to investigate the causes.
A Home Office spokesman said the study “is a result of our continual engagement with staff”.