CIVIL SERVICE RACE SHAME
Whites 7 times more likely to get top jobs
WHITE applicants are seven times more likely to land top civil service jobs than black ones.
Recruitment data shows that of every 200 black people bidding for roles via the Civil Service Fast Stream last year, only one got an offer.
This compared with one in every 25 white applicants.
Labour MP Grahame Morris said: “These numbers are just unacceptable. It cannot be right that just one in 200 black applicants are successful in applying for jobs in the civil service
“That’s just wrong. There is clearly something systemically wrong if we look at these figures.
“There must be changes and the changes must be pushed through quickly for the sake of fairness.”
Of the 1,245 job offers given out by the top branch of the civil service in 2016, which is the most recent year for which data is available, just 13 went to the 2,135 black applicants. Meanwhile, in the same cohort there were 20,536 applications from people described as white British – who got 903 offers.
Figures showed privately educated white people who went to Oxford or Cambridge have the best chance.
Simon Woolley, from Operation Black Vote, said the system “disproportionately excludes BME individuals”, adding: “This new data shows why the top is virtually all white.
“We can only hope that the new plans for tackling the lack of diversity by Sir Jeremy Heywood, head of the Civil servants, will be a meaningful endeavour.”
Black people who have made it to the top of the civil service include Sharon White, who was Second Permanent Secretary in the Treasury and is now chief executive of Ofcom.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The Fast Stream is committed to continuously improving its recruitment and assessment processes.”