Make less merry to be inclusive, civil servants told
Managers’ diversity orders over parties include a ban on alcohol to avoid offence to non-drinking colleagues
CIVIL servants have been ordered to call their Christmas parties “festive celebrations” and to not drink alcohol if other team members are non-drinkers.
The Sunday Telegraph has spoken to government officials who say they have been told their end-of-year events should not be explicitly linked to Christmas in an attempt to avoid excluding people of different faiths.
It is understood a government-wide policy has not been issued, but some managers have interpreted diversity and inclusion advice to mean the traditional office party should not take place.
One civil servant at a major department said the team had been told to find a restaurant that does not serve alcohol to avoid “excluding” a member of staff who does not drink. “We’re in a situation where in the name of inclusivity, one member of staff is being allowed to dictate what other members of staff can or cannot drink,” they said.
“Of course, no one should be expected to drink alcohol and there should always be the option of nonalcoholic drinks for those who don’t want to or can’t. But it just feels a step too far to say that nobody is allowed to drink alcohol because of the beliefs of one member of staff.”
A second senior civil servant said their department had been banned from drinking alcohol at their Christmas party “because of Boris” and the memory of the partygate scandal.
The civil service “faith and belief toolkit” says Christmas parties are permitted, but that managers should “think about the venue and bear in mind that not everyone consumes alcohol”.
It adds: “Your aim should be to make sure that feeling part of the team doesn’t depend on people taking part in activities they’re not comfortable with.”
Ministers have attempted to crack down on “unconscious bias” training in the civil service, which Julia Lopez, then a Cabinet Office minister, said “does not achieve its intended aims”.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who scrapped several of the courses in his time as a Cabinet Office minister, said: “This is another example of the forces of wokeness using the concept of ‘inclusivity’ to delete Britain’s culture and I look forward to seeing the Government’s response to it.
“In the meantime I hope civil servants will respond by celebrating Christmas
with even more enthusiasm – and won’t hold back on the drinks!”
In one training course that has since been scrapped, civil servants were confronted with a scenario where a manager told a member of staff to remove a Christmas tree in case it offended Jewish or Muslim colleagues.
In 2014, staff at the former Department for Energy and Climate Change were told to avoid using the phrase “Merry Christmas” in festive missives to their colleagues to avoid causing offence.