Opinion: D&I Expenditure in the Civil Service

 by Mackenzie Gilmore

In the news recently, a report on Civil Service D&I spending came out, triggering a contentious discourse. Esther McVey, officially the Minister Without Portfolio, but unofficially dubbed by No10 as ‘Minister for Common Sense’, headlined some of these statistics and the steps taken to address the ‘issues’.

The Right-wing Conservative Government has consistently attacked the spending of the D&I bodies in the Civil Service. One example of this is the internal report started in October requested by Jeremy Hunt into D&I expenditure, which found that there had been £27 million spent. To put this number into perspective, the public expenditure on Defence in 2022-23 was £55.5 billion, with £126 billion spent on Economic Affairs in the same year. D&I spending hardly scratches the surface of what the Civil Service spends public funds on - so why is the Government focusing on it so much?

Far-Right party Reform UK has been a worry for the Conservative Party recently, due to concerns it may split their votes in the yet-to-be announced General Election. The incumbent party is not allowed to use the Civil Service to help them campaign in elections, so as not to provide an unfair advantage. Therefore internal reviews like this have to be undertaken now, so their findings can be used during campaigning. Make no mistake, the Government do not particularly care about the £27 million of D&I spending; it has little to no impact on the economy. However, the part of their voter base most at risk of defecting to Reform UK - the far right - are generally the kind that would vehemently reject any mention of D&I, and complain about wasting taxpayers money on (as Esther McVey called it) 'woke hobby horses'. The Conservative Government is aware that any attempt to gain these kinds of figures during an election campaign would be rebuffed by the Civil Service. Their early investigations simply represent an abuse of a loophole, in order that they can use public services to further their own party’s dire fortunes.

The absurdity of the situation becomes clear when you hear some of the measures planned by McVey to combat this apparently egregious D&I activity. There will no longer be any roles dedicated solely to D&I in the civil service, essentially meaning anyone with the words D&I in their job title needs to slightly alter their job title to remove it (which feels like a slight waste of everyone’s time, and a token action) and staff are no longer allowed to wear rainbow lanyards - or any lanyard at all apart from the standard Civil Service one. This becomes even more ridiculous when you consider that at Civil Service conferences, as with many other such events in the private sector, ‘souvenir lanyards’ are handed out to attendees - which presumably they are now no longer allowed to wear as someone might mistake it for a positive attitude towards D&I. Additionally, no-one outside of the Civil Service will see this change, as civil servants aren’t supposed to wear their lanyards out of the office for safety reasons, so the public will never even know if this policy is being followed. 

Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, commented directly on the issue in PM’s questions on Wednesday 15th May, ‘On Monday the prime minister treated us to his seventh relaunch in 18 months, and he vowed to take on the dangers that threaten the country. So it was good to see the minister for common sense immediately take up that mantle by announcing a vital crackdown on the gravest of threats, colourful lanyards." An easy win for the Labour Party, and one that was very avoidable from the Conservatives, yet here we are. People Management, the magazine for the CIPD, (the professional body for ‘people professionals’ like people who work in D&I) commented that removing dedicated D&I/EDI roles will ‘ultimately impact the employer’s ability to attract and retain top talent which has a knock-on-effect on team productivity and organisational performance.’ They continued, ‘Consolidation of dedicated diversity roles into wider HR teams could not only impact civil service staff, but affect the quality of services provided to the public.’ Essentially, such structural changes to the Civil Service will likely have a minimal positive impact, but could have damaging effects on quality of service and hiring top talent.

D&I departments in the Civil Service aren’t even always related to what McVey might call ‘woke’ activities; generally they are about creating equal opportunities and ensuring that there is no discrimination within departments. It seems like a lot of effort for the Conservatives to be focusing on this when there are such bigger problems in the country at the moment, and the lack of support coming from within parts of the Civil Service speaks volumes. Ultimately, chances are it won’t stop the fall of the Conservative Party in the upcoming election, and it will just have been a waste of everyone’s time - but it was entertaining to watch members of the Conservative Party distance themselves from McVey over the lanyard insanity.