Member

I also want to query how equal opportunities will be monitored. Definitions of protected characteristics are increasingly unhelpful. I mentioned the Civil Service. In an excellent article in the New Statesman, former senior civil servant Pamela Dow used the example of graduates ticking the disability box on their application to the Civil Service Fast Stream. That meant that they rose from 11% in 2014 to 23% in 2020, perhaps because it allowed candidates to skip an assessment stage, therefore possibly incentivising them to disclose. When we say we want to report on and monitor diversity and to know who is who, can we at least have a question mark about what is being measured? Therefore, regardless of what it means, the Civil Service now has no idea how many people are blind, bipolar, using a wheelchair or with a self-diagnosed ADHD or anxiety question. I do not think those sorts of statistics are helpful. I am worried about just taking on board mandating it and box-ticking, and therefore actually not doing anything for people with disabilities.