£160,000 spent to stop civil servants rolling eyes

MORE than £160,000 has been spent on teaching civil servants to avoid looking at their phones or rolling their eyes, it has emerged.

Government employees have been taught by private sector consultants to spot ‘microaggressions’ at specially run workshops since 2021.

More than £1,000 per worker was spent on the sessions by a Department for Education agency to promote transparency and inclusion in the civil service.

Former Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Mail last night: ‘My eyes are rolling at this news – and it is about time for some macro-aggression on behalf of taxpayers who pick up the bill for all this folderol.’ Official

training sessions in ‘microaggressions’ – gestures which inadvertently may show hostility to women or minorities – began in 2021, according to an investigation by The Times.

One group was taught ‘verbal or nonverbal snubs (rolling of eyes, looking at your phone whilst someone is speaking to you)... communicate unfriendly, critical or negative messages’.

The Department for Transport spent £64,807 on the training, while the Competition and Markets Authority spent £61,776.

The Department for Education spent £4,576 on a session for just four staff – around a quarter of its spending on the sessions. The revelations are likely to spark a row over how taxpayers’ cash is spent in the civil service.

Some attendees of the sessions, financed by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, also said the training failed to enhance their knowledge and did not apply to their work.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘Taxpayers are bound to realise that this is another opportunity for civil servants to doss about on their dime.’

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘We stopped making these courses available to book in 2022 and... are considering introducing a presumption against external equality, diversity and inclusion spending.’