If the government is really promising to cut £5.5 billion in waste over the next year, the public sector obviously hasn’t got the memo yet. In the last few weeks, HMRC, Homes England, and UK Research and Innovation have all published new job listings for ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ managers with salaries starting at £43,523, and rising all the way up to £72,202. Take comfort in knowing when the taxman / woman / person / gender outlaw raids your pockets, they’re doing it in a diverse and inclusive way…
In 2020, Homes England – which until now, Guido assumed was responsible for building more houses – published its inaugural Equality, Diversity and Inclusion report, which included a list of the diversity team’s achievements in its first year. Here’s a taste of what their new hire will be building on:
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Introduction of gender neutral toilets in some of our offices.
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Creation of external networks to improve inclusivity within the property and construction industries
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Contributing to the development of a diversity calendar to drive ongoing engagement with colleagues.
Forget the housing crisis: at least some of the Homes England offices have gender neutral toilets.
The Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty (PSED), which necessitates that public bodies must “have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities”, doesn’t say this requires whole teams of dedicated diversity and inclusion staff collecting top salaries courtesy of the taxpayer. All the responsibilities legally required in the Equality Act could – and should – be absorbed into an existing HR department’s remit…
“Taxpayers are sick of paying for diversity non-jobs. These latest hires by unquenchable quangos simply add insult to injury. Government bodies should scrap these unnecessary posts.”
