Home Office staff told to consider three diversity initiatives every day, GB News investigation reveals

The training, seen by GB News, on “Fostering inclusion and belonging” tells civil servants to constantly think about ways the Home Office can be more diverse and then “look back after to see if they did in fact happen or not and why.”

Civil servants are also told to “identify two colleagues who are from different backgrounds and in different teams within the Home Office” and then “Ask them if they would be happy to have a conversation with you about their and your own experiences of diversity, inclusion and belonging.”

The training continues: “If they agree, schedule some time in the diary with them.”

Robert Bates, Director of Research at the Centre for Migration Control, told GB News: “There are many things Home Office employees should be dedicating time to think about.”

“For example, how to fix their disastrous border policy, how to end illegal migration and cut legal migration and how to make the Rwanda plan work.”

“Diversity and inclusion should not feature in the top 1,000 priorities for Home Office staff, and to be told by their bosses they should spend time thinking about diversity every day is an insult to the British public,” Mr Bates said.

“The Home Office is not fit for purpose, and its staff should look for work elsewhere if they are interested in thinking about diversity all day.”

He continued: “Ministers must scrap this diversity training immediately and tell staff to focus on their core priorities.”

The training also asks civil servants “What reflections do you have on how your identity and background impacts your experiences at work?” and states that “Sometimes people might be keen to take action without being fully aware of how their identity and/or background impacts their point of view and decision making.”

The Home Office diversity initiative is based on “The HERO model”, an acronym staff are told to follow which stands for Hope, Self-efficacy [sic], Resilience and Optimism.

Civil servants are told to follow the model at work by reflecting on who they are “through the lens of someone else” and to “Talk to others and see if their view of you matches your own”.

The model urges officials to “to champion inclusive working practices” and to “spend time focusing on what you appreciate right now”.

Rory Geoghegan, founder of the Public Safety Foundation, said: "It's quite incredible that as illegal migrants disregard our borders and as neighbourhoods up and down the country suffer the blight of crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour, officials in the Home Office are directed to spend their time on diversity initiatives rather than the public's priorities."

"The senior mandarins at the Home Office seemingly don't see a problem with this, of course, shielded as they are - by huge salaries and pensions - from the concerns of ordinary people up and down the UK."

He continued: "There are, of course, hard-working and dedicated civil servants working in the Home Office and this sort of initiative does nothing to support them in their work for the British people.

“Indeed, it actively undermines them by taking precious time and resource away from key priorities and applies it to promoting unproven, often counterproductive, initiatives built on divisive and contested ideologies that nobody has voted for."

The departmental training also asks questions to officials such as “How can you ensure you use more inclusive language?”, “Why does our organisation care about diversity and inclusion?”, and “What might get in the way of us becoming more diverse and inclusive?”.

Civil servants are told to “Think about the statement, 'to me, diversity and inclusion are’”.

The Home Office guidance describes its values, which are “core to our culture and future diversity and inclusion strategy”, as being “respectful”, “Courageous”, “Compassionate” and “Collaborative”.

The training states: “It isn't enough to simply have diversity. You can have diverse environments but if action isn't taken to use and harness our uniqueness then we cannot be truly inclusive.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “This is supplementary material which staff are free to explore should they wish to. Our staff are trained to, and are focused on, delivering the Home Office’s priorities to stop the boats, cut migration, keep the country safe and tackle violence against women and girls.

“We keep our diversity and inclusion policies and programmes under constant review to ensure they meet the needs and priorities of the department and our people."