‘Minister for Common Sense’ Esther McVey has outlined plans to end civil service spending on equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI), describing it in the Sunday Telegraph as “wasteful” and “a pointless job creation scheme for the politically correct”. Not only does this suggest she would prefer a country that was unequal, culturally narrow and exclusionary, but that she doesn’t understand the basics of how effective government works.
How EDI makes organisations stronger
There’s a reason why EDI is valued in the business world and it isn’t that corporations are run by hippies who just want to share and be nice to everybody. Simply put, EDI increases efficiency and profit margins. There are several reasons for this, but at its most basic, it comes down to this: society is made up of people, and the better we understand them, the more effectively we can interact with them. This applies whether you’re a company seeking to attract customers, a government trying to provide public services, or a political party trying to entice voters.
Where does money spent on EDI go? There are three main places. First, it pays for individuals with across-the-board expertise. Second, it pays for consultations, focus groups and other forms of research into the thoughts and experiences of particular sections of society. Third, it pays for practical initiatives aimed at increasing diversity within organisations and ensuring that everyone within them is able to contribute. All of these things have practical, useful effects.
How EDI improves policy making and planning
When an organisation has access to expertise and up-to-date research findings, it is better able to anticipate potential problems with its strategies before putting them into place. This enables it to refine them ahead of time, avoiding costly mistakes.
When a government wants to announce that every trans person in an NHS England hospital should be treated in a separate room, for instance, an EDI expert could advise it on how many trans people there are in the country and how many other people need separate hospital rooms, thereby enabling it to assess the shortage of infrastructure and make plans to address it, before it makes an announcement destined to have embarrassing consequences.
EDI isn’t just useful when it comes to specific decisions. It helps with overall planning. A government serious about getting more disabled people into work needs EDI to help it ensure that buildings and transport networks are accessible, that working environments don’t worsen long-term illnesses or cause mental health crises, and that it is not also creating needless barriers to obstruct those who need to work from home.
A government which believes in levelling up will not make progress with that if it is unprepared to acknowledge that inequalities exist in the first place, or to consult with people who can help it to understand why.
Why the Conservative Party needs EDI
In the recent row over remarks made by Conservative Party donor Frank Hester, Rishi Sunak insisted that the party is not racist. Indeed, just a few months before, Boris Johnson had claimed “We are the party of hope and opportunity for people across this country, irrespective of race”. Yet despite this, only 7% of its MPs come from BAME backgrounds, as opposed to 18% of the general population. That’s not the only area in which it does a poor job of reflecting the general population – only 21% of its MPs are women.
Why is this? Without EDI, it cannot provide an answer. Nor can it take evidence-based measures to bring about positive change.
Internal diversity isn’t just a matter of crafting a ‘politically correct’ appearance. It means that policy mistakes like those mentioned above don’t happen in the first place, because they’re obvious to people within the organisation even as the policy is being developed.
For instance, if you’re trying to get more people to make healthy food choices, it helps to have people with lived experience of poverty – with the best will in the world, a collection of Old Etonians simply won’t know what’s realistic on a budget, won’t realise the impact of having limited cooking facilities and will likely overlook the problems caused over the long term by a diet that provides enough calories but not adequate nutrition.
EDI also means that an organisation has a much broader range of perspectives available to it and can therefore come up with more new ideas. It wasn’t until younger women began to enter politics, for instance, that childcare rose up the political agenda – and led to initiatives which massively increased the number of people able to contribute to the economy, benefiting everyone. It hadn’t happened before because politicians generally had very little experience of childcare themselves, and it certainly wasn’t a current issue in their lives.
Putting ideology before practicality
McVey’s latest means of demonstrating her opposition to EDI is to try and ban the wearing of rainbow lanyards within the civil service. This really is a matter of putting ideology before, well, common sense. While rainbow lanyards might not seem important to most people – beyond brightening up the office a bit – they’re an important signal to LGBTQ+ people that it’s safe to come out to people wearing them.
When people can be their whole selves at work, their productivity and loyalty increase. If, due to the implementation of petty measures like a rainbow ban, they feel that people like them are unwelcome, they are more likely to be stressed and underperform, and the social fabric of the workplace is damaged, weakening the whole team.
If the Conservatives are interested in governing this country successfully, drawing on the talents of a capable, reliable, high-performing staff, then they will stop chasing rainbows and recognise the practical importance of EDI. At present, they are the ones putting ideology before politics, and we are all worse off because of it.
