Civil service diversity strategy criticised for lack of targets and guidance

New focus on class and location should not come at the expense of ethnicity, disability and gender, IfG says
Photo: Steven Weirather/Pixabay

By Jim Dunton

14 Dec 2022

The broad-brush approach to equality set out in the latest civil service diversity and inclusion strategy has left departments without targets or guidance to improve ethnicity, disability and gender representation, the Institute for Government has said.

The think tank's new report, A Crossroads for Diversity and Inclusion in the Civil Service, welcomes the Cabinet Office’s decision to place greater emphasis on socio-economic background, geographic location and professional background of civil servants. 

But the IfG said the latest strategy’s new, more general, definition of workforce diversity was not specific enough about objectives and success criteria, while previous headline targets for new minority ethnic and disabled entrants to the civil service had been ended early. 

According to the report, February’s strategy states that the civil service will “use positive action where needed… to ensure the broadest range of diversity is achieved”, but does not do enough to explain what that means in practice, making it hard for decision-makers to be held to account.  

“The new strategy sets out just two clear targets for workforce diversity: ensuring 50% of senior civil servants are based outside London by 2030, and recruiting 1,000 prison leavers by the end of 2023,” the report says.  

“It does not include plans to directly target the recruitment, retention or progression of staff from lower socio-economic backgrounds, despite the fact that addressing this kind of inequality is emphasised in the language of the strategy.” 

The report said dropping the previous headline targets for hiring minority ethnic and disabled staff was “unfortunate” at a time when the proportion of minority ethnic officials in the senior civil service had declined for the first time since 2015. 

IfG researcher and report author Maddy Bishop said departments still needed guidance and support to shape and coordinate their own D&I plans – and set clear targets for the recruitment, retention and progression of staff from underrepresented backgrounds.   

“The civil service’s 2022 diversity and inclusion strategy puts a welcome new emphasis on working class officials and for the first time considers geographic location a form of workforce diversity,” she said. 

“But this new, broader definition of diversity should not mean a reduced focus on protected characteristics such as ethnicity, disability and gender – the IfG’s research shows the civil service still has work to do to improve representation and inclusion in these areas.” 

The IfG said its own analysis of government data showed that the civil service was becoming more representative of the UK public.  

Fifty-five percent of civil servants are female, including 47% of senior civil servants, compared with 48% of the economically active population. Fifteen percent of civil servants come from a minority ethnic background, including 10% of senior civil servants, compared with 14% of the economically active population. 

Fourteen percent of civil servants have a disability, including 9% of senior civil servants, compared with 16% of the economically active population. 

Nevertheless, the new report – which is based on input from private round-table events and interviews – found officials from a range of different backgrounds feel they have faced barriers to progression at work based on their class, ethnicity or other demographic factors. The IfG said many officials reported a belief that their backgrounds and experiences were not valued in government. 

It concludes that the Cabinet Office must explicitly set out departments’ role in developing their own practical plans and targets within the framework of the new D&I strategy, and recognise where work still needs to be done on protected characteristics. That work should involve “clearly communicating” the need for departments to set specific objectives.  

The report said that despite promising an emphasis on socio-economic diversity, the strategy “mostly restates existing commitments”. The IfG said further measures to address barriers to progression for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds were vital – particularly measures to stop officials “self-sorting” into operational career paths and to open up the policy profession and the Senior Civil Service. 

It said existing plans to help staff at lower grades to get work experience in the policy profession needed to be improved upon. 

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