Exposed: Whitehall’s 500-strong army of diversity enforcers may cost u | UK | News
At least 500 civil servants work to oversee and develop diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies across the Government, The Telegraph reports.
The number of staff overseeing equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race policies in some Whitehall departments has doubled in the year since Labor came to power.
The figures were only removed from Whitehall after a two-year battle by Neil O’Brien MP, who used freedom of information (FOI) laws and parliamentary questions to fight attempts by officials and ministers to block the release of the figures.
The figures are an underestimate as some departments still refuse to respond.
77 DEI staff work at the MoD
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) alone employs 77 staff with job titles containing the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT and race. This is apparently the largest number used in any Whitehall department except the Cabinet Office, which has a central coordinating role for DEI policies.
Office of Equality and Opportunity sees staff growth
The Equality and Opportunity Office (formerly the Equality Centre) in the Cabinet Office, which guides Government policy in this area, currently has 180 staff.
This compares to just 28 staff the DEI acknowledged were employed in gender, LGBT or race titles as of December 2023. The Cabinet Office has around 330 DEI staff outside its central equality teams, bringing the known total to 510.
Mr O’Brien, the shadow minister appointed by Kemi Badenoch to a key role in policy renewal and development, said the apparent increase in the number of DEI posts was a waste of taxpayers’ money, just as Britons will be asked to pay more taxes in the Budget.
Assuming an average salary of £55,000 for each officer in a DEI or similar role, the wage bill for 510 staff would be at least £28.1 million a year. Mr O’Brien added that their role further increased costs because the policies they produced required other civil servants to spend time figuring out how to comply with those policies.
Labor ministers accused of blocking data disclosure
Mr O’Brien asked each Government department and key agencies how many staff they had with job titles containing the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT and race.
The Ministry of Defense promised data in a written response during the last Government, but following the election of Sir Keir Starmer, Mr O’Brien said the department had rejected it. He extracted the figure 77 through FOI requests and objections.
Departments see increase in DEI staffing
The data revealed 180 staff in the Office for Equality and Opportunity, 63 working centrally, 18 working on LGBT policy, 19 working on equality, 20 working on social mobility, 23 working on women’s equality, 25 working in the disability unit and 12 working in the race equality unit.
The number of DEI staff has increased across various departments, including the Department for Transport, the Home Office, HS2 Ltd, the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the DWP, the education department and the Environment Agency.
A government source defended the roles of diversity, equality and inclusion, saying these included teams working on critical issues such as ending violence against women and girls, removing barriers to work for people with disabilities and improving workplace support for women experiencing menopause.
The source accused the Conservative Party of hypocrisy, stating that they had presided over a massive expansion of the state and hired 130,000 extra civil servants despite promising to do the opposite.
Conservatives ‘woke ideology’ and demand value for money
But Mr O’Brien stood his ground, saying: “The fact that so many Labor Ministers are trying to block the release of these figures at every opportunity shows they know voters do not support non-business waste of money.
“But Labor has prioritized ideology-inducing funding rather than doing what voters want and delivering value for money. When Rachel Reeves raises our taxes, there will be this kind of nonsense that hard-working people will pay extra for.”
The debate over the role and number of diversity, equality and inclusion staff in government departments is likely to continue as Labor and the Conservatives clash over the value and necessity of these positions.
Labor argues these roles are necessary to address critical social issues, while the Conservatives argue they represent a waste of taxpayers’ money and the prioritization of “woke ideology” over giving the public value for money.
