‘Purge of the middle class’ fears at top firms

Staff asked if they went to public school as employers adopt Government’s diversity questionnaire

BRITAIN’S leading employers are asking their staff if they went to public school as part of a government drive to improve diversity in the workforce, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Ministers have published a series of questions intended for use by major companies and the Civil Service about workers’ socio-economic backgrounds.

They include asking staff whether they attended a fee-paying school and whether they qualified for free school meals, as well as what their parents did for a living and what academic qualifications their parents achieved. A fifth optional question asks whether they consider themselves to be working class.

Critics said the questions were “naïve”, “totalitarian” and could lead to “socio-economic cleansing” and a “purge of middle-class staff” in offices across the UK. Tens of thousands of civil servants will be asked the questions in the Civil Service’s annual “people survey” in October this year. Major firms which advised on the guidelines – such as KPMG, Grant Thornton and Linklaters – confirmed they were asking staff similar questions, including if they went to public schools.

The Government insisted there were no plans to make the socio-economic checks a legal duty on firms, but similar initiatives on gender pay have ended up becoming set in law.

The plans were criticised by Barnaby Lenon, the chairman of the Independent Schools Council, as “methodologically naïve” because he had taught “boys who lived in council estates and boys who lived in castles” when he was the headmaster of Harrow School.

David Green, the director of Civitas, the Right-of-centre think-tank, said: “For centuries every sincere supporter of liberty and democracy wanted individuals to be judged on their own merits, regardless of their place of birth. Now, Whitehall reactionaries want us to take a step backwards. It is sinister enough that these questions are likely to lead to socio-economic cleansing, but, even worse, it looks as if the purges of middle-class staff will be based, not on each individual’s qualities, but on the social class of their parents.

“Where will it go next? Perhaps they will cut out the middleman and just ask: ‘Are you now, or have you ever been, a reader of The Daily Telegraph?”

The guidelines, entitled “Measuring Socio-economic Background in your Workforce: recommended measures for use by employers”, were published without fanfare on the Government’s website last week.

A spokesman for Standard Life, which employs 9,000 people, said: “We will be looking at the recommendations and will consider how we can

incorporate them into our processes.” Linklaters said that for the past year it had asked its 1,600 UK workers socio-economic questions including about what type of school they attended and what their parents’ qualifications were.

KPMG said it had asked its new staff about parental occupation and type of school attended since 2014. Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, said it already asked similar questions including one about whether members of staff went to public school.

An Ernst & Young spokesman said the firm would implement the Government’s recommendations “in the future”.

Writing on The Telegraph’s website, Henry Morris, the chief executive and founder of data analysis firm PIC, said: “The Government’s recommendations are neither intelligent nor sophisticated enough. The truth is that it doesn’t really matter how someone’s education was funded. The important thing is how much support their parents gave them and whether they went to a high quality school.

“The guidance from the Government is the first step down a path that will make this country fairer and richer. The only problem is that the advice doesn’t go far enough.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “This Government is determined to build a society that works for everyone.”