by Charles Hymas, Telegraph
The figures have been extracted from Whitehall after a two-year battle for data by the MP Neil O’Brien
At least 500 civil servants are employed across Government to police and develop diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies, The Telegraph can reveal.
Some Whitehall departments have seen the numbers of staff whose jobs involve overseeing equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race policies double in the past year since Labour came to power.
The figures have only been extracted from Whitehall after a two-year battle by the MP Neil O’Brien, who used freedom of information (FOI) laws and parliamentary questions to counter attempts by officials and ministers to block the release of the figures. They are an underestimate as some departments have still refused to answer.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) alone employs 77 staff who have job titles that include the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT and race. This is ostensibly the biggest number employed in any single Whitehall department barring the Cabinet Office, which has a central co-ordinating role for DEI policies.
[…] Assuming an average salary of £55,000 for each civil servant with a DEI or similar role, the pay bill for the 510 staff would be at least £28.1 million a year. Mr O’Brien added that their roles further increased costs, because the policies they produced then required other civil servants to spend time working out how to comply with them.