Civil service jobs solely dedicated to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are set to be axed, the minister for ‘common sense’ has announced.
Esther Mcvey warned Whitehall must not become a “pointless job creation scheme for the politically correct” in the Sunday Telegraph, and claimed public money was being wasted.
Mcvey, whose official role is a Cabinet Office minister, unveiled the details of the plan in a speech at the Centre for Policy Studies on Monday.
She said: “The taxpayer has to be at the heart of everything we do… we need to stop the inappropriate backdoor politicisation of the civil service which diverts time and resources from that focus on the public.
“People want their public servants to be getting on with the job of making their lives better, not engaging in endless internal discussions about ideology.”
She said that under new guidance set to be published shortly, all external EDI spending across the civil service would cease unless it is specifically signed off and cleared by ministers.
The Conservative MP for Tatton, in Cheshire, said there would be no more devoted EDI jobs in Whitehall outside human resources and no more staff working solely on EDI work.
And Mcvey said she would also be meeting arms-length bodies which had spent the most on external EDI, asking them to explain how this spending was benefitting taxpayers.
It comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in October launched a review on spending on EDI schemes in the public sector, with the findings now having been given to the Cabinet Office.
Spending on EDI has become a recurring bugbear for right-wing Tories. Promises to save public money by slashing such policies are likely to grow louder ahead of the election.
The Cabinet Office declined to say how many non-HR staff in the Civil Service are currently working solely on EDI, according to the PA news agency.
However, the department confirmed that civil service EDI spending would be further controlled and accountable across external and internal roles and evaluation metrics.
Standalone EDI roles will be incorporated into existing departmental HR teams and carry out any EDI work alongside other HR work, it is understood.
Joanna Marchong, investigations campaigns manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), said: “Taxpayers will be thrilled that ministers are injecting some much-needed common sense into Whitehall.
“Creating whole teams devoted to EDI initiatives has been a disaster for the public sector, which has spent vast amounts of money and time on needless navel-gazing, as public services deteriorate.
“Politicians should now crackdown on these redundant roles at all levels of government, not just in the civil service.”
But Labour’s Pat Mcfadden, shadow secretary of state in the cabinet office, said: “With over seven million people on NHS waiting lists and homeowners still paying the price for the Tories crashing the economy, no amount of blaming civil servants for the Tories lack of delivery will wash.
“They should focus on the day job rather than looking for other people to blame.”