- Ministers also to sign off on any external EDI spending before it is implemented
‘Common Sense’ minister Esther McVey has announced a ban on civil service jobs dedicated to ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ (EDI) and has claimed that money is wasted on ‘woke hobby horses’.
The Tory MP said no more staff would work solely on EDI programmes and there would be an end to devoted EDI jobs in Whitehall outside human resources.
The new plans would also require ministers to sign off and clear any external EDI spending across the civil service before it can be implemented.
The minister also confirmed she would be asking the arms-length bodies, which had spent the most on EDI, how their schemes benefitted taxpayers.
The MP for Tatton in Cheshire warned that the public sector must not become a ‘pointless job creation scheme for the politically correct’.
‘Common Sense’ minister Esther McVey (pictured) has announced a ban on civil service jobs dedicated to ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ (EDI) and has claimed that money is wasted on ‘ woke hobby horses’
She wrote that the amount of staff time taken up by such programmes was ‘a major concern’.
She added: ‘Time and money which should be spent on the core purpose of the public sector – delivering for the public – is being wasted on woke hobby horses.
‘Most of these kinds of EDI programmes – especially when delivered by private companies or campaigning organisations – are not transparent, and their benefits unproven. If we can’t prove their worth, then they don’t pass the public interest test. So I’m determined to stop it.’
Ms McVey also insisted that diversity should be more about differences in opinion than other characteristics, and that the service should be about ‘merit’ first and foremost.
The shake-up is designed to halt the ‘back-door politicisation’ of the service and will also see managers banned from bringing in third-party EDI contractors, The Telegraph reports.
This comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt launched a review on spending on EDI schemes throughout the public sector in October, with the findings, which identified £27 million worth of spending, now having been passed to the Cabinet Office.
Spending on EDI has regularly been slammed by right-wing Tories, and promises to save public money by slashing such policies are likely to grow louder ahead of the general election.
The Tory MP said no more staff would work solely on EDI work and there would be no more devoted EDI jobs in Whitehall outside human resources (pictured: Ministry of Defence in Whitehall)
This year, plans laid out by Ms McVey and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch urged the civil service to only organise diversity meetings outside of work hours or during lunch breaks.
In 2021, Liz Truss, who was then the equalities minister, pulled Whitehall departments out of a ‘diversity champions’ programme operated by charity Stonewall after it was accused of pushing extreme ideologies.
The Cabinet Office declined to say how many non-HR staff in the civil service are currently working solely on EDI.
