The Treasury’s threat yesterday to rain hell on anyone caught leaking stories to the media is, as they should have expected, being ignored. Guido’s also got his hands on the latest edition of the Treasury’s “Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Action Plan“, the woke bible handed to every incoming nascent mandarin when they join the department. This is the same document Treasury staff were encouraged to pore over in the internal memo Guido revealed last week. It’s 32 pages long, and includes all the predictable promises, like flying more flags and convincing more staff to “share diversity data” so managers can measure just how wonderfully inclusive they are. There’s yet another reminder that “we are all accountable” for this stuff, and “everyone’s contribution counts.” “We all understand what we need to do, and do more of it”, staff are told…

It’s also made explicit that managers and senior civil servants (SCS) are reviewed based on their ability to implement “diversity, inclusion and belonging”. Directors are told they are “answerable for diversity, inclusion and belonging outcomes” in their teams and told to attend “Diversity panels“. Staff at every level are expected to “hold each other to account” in promoting all this…

A civil service source tells Guido that, as a result, senior mandarins have a habit of loudly “paying lip service” to gender and identity politics, and that prioritising it as a performance review objective can distract staff from the bread and butter of their actual work:

“there’s actual, quantifiable problems they need to deal with, now that inflation is going to go through the roof. Not [messing] about with diversity and inclusion luxury virtue signalling.”

What do these mandarins care about more? Inflation being at 10%, or the number of LGBTQUIA+ employees being at 7.4%?