Has DEI hiring lowered professional standards in government departments?
Government departments including the Treasury removed numerical and verbal reasoning tests from graduate recruitment after finding they had an adverse impact on ethnic minority candidates, leading to increased diversity in hires but criticism that this prioritised ethnicity over competence. The NHS has continued advertising high-paid DEI roles and used practices like the Rooney Rule to ensure ethnic minority shortlisting despite ministerial calls to cut such initiatives and focus on patient care. Civil service diversity statistics show rising ethnic minority and disability representation, yet reports highlight concerns over grade inflation and diluted expertise requirements.
29 Opinions
In everything not just government
The Equity idea is seductively simple. Equality of outcome, rather than opportunity. Sounds great, right? Two problems: First: People have different aptitudes. And there's a limit to how far the inept IN A GIVEN UNDETAKING can level up. They need to accept their limitations and do something they are better suited to. Second: The focus is on equity for the Employee ... not the Customer.
Every person employed by the govt should be British and have good grades in English and maths. No foreign interpreters so if don't speak English no help for you
Every person working in public service should have at least a C in English and Arithmetic
Demonstrably so and, if you look at the reasoning provided and the changes made by the Govt the DEI objectives are being met precisely BY lowering standards. They are not even bothering to hide it
In any environment recruiting & promoting people based on anything other than merit you will instantly have problems & considerably more down the line. Particularly those who have won jobs on the basis of their religion colour nationality etc & not ability, will tend to promote those like them. DEI is no accident it’s a Leftist device to destroy all that is/was good in Western free societies & replace with malleable idiots who can be instructed to obey the ‘Socialist’ way.
The decline of meritocracy as both a measure of and a means of achieving excellence is one of the most baffling developments of my lifetime. I failed the Eleven Plus. I had reading difficulties at primary and bloomed late. But I wasn't excluded from anything. I was guided into a system that allowed me to grow at my own pace, with enough variety to find my place. Language and science are my happy places now. The politics of envy is one of the ugliest human traits.
It's supposed to be diversity AND competence, not diversity OR competence. It is not the case that "standards are racist". It is not the case that the diverse person brings other skills to the table that somehow make up for the missing essential ones. All of this odd overcomplicated thinking has got to go. Back to basics.
This is obviously the case. Hiring should be on merit. If that means you end up with a low proportion of members of one ethnic group or another so be it. Removing tests so you can bring in a bunch of people who don’t meet the required standard and would have failed the test so you can tick a diversity quota off is by definition a lowering of standards.
DEI is a total disaster in any sector. Everything should be merit first. I believe DEI leads to corruption, inefficiency & danger to life when it comes to military, police, health service & fire service.