Public sector diversity officers

It’s not easy to estimate the numbers of diversity officers in the public sector because the data is patchy and politically contested. Most of the accessible figures come from FOI requests, newspaper investigations and think-tank reports. This is good enough for order-of-magnitude estimates, but not for precise headcounts.

Estimating it from sector by sector counts, the approximate numbers might be as follows:

Central civil service: ~600

NHS: ~900

Police: ~225

Local authorities: ~450

Universities: ~400

Other public bodies: ~200

This gives a range from low–high assumptions.

Low: 500 + 800 + 150 + 300 + 350 + 100 ≈ 2,200

High: 700 + 1,000 + 300 + 600 + 450 + 300 ≈ 3,350

So a refined ballpark is ~2,200–3,400 diversity / equality / inclusion posts across the UK public sector, with a central guess at about 3,000. There are big caveats that are worth stressing. One is that the definitions vary

The above figures stick to dedicated roles whose job titles clearly reference equality, diversity, inclusion, race, gender, LGBT, etc. If we also counted HR staff, managers and lawyers who spend part of their time on equality compliance, the numbers would be higher.

It should be stressed that the ballpark figures to not include DEI officers employed by firms in the private sector, where numbers would be more difficult to estimate.

One significant question might be whether these employees add anything to the productivity of their department, or whether they even detract from it.

Another pertinent question might be whether the policy employing such people is inherently racist. It seeks to maintain a diversity of people of different races, ethnic groups, gender and sexual orientation instead of judging people by their qualities as individuals. Instead of selection on merit, it is selection based on membership of sub-groups.

The US Supreme Court recently struck down Affirmative Action for discriminating against some groups of people in order to discriminate in favour of others.

In 2023, an internal Ministry of Defence inquiry concluded that the Royal Air Force (RAF) had unlawfully discriminated against white male applicants in a push to meet diversity targets. The RAF has admitted the discrimination and apologized.

It could be argued that the whole DEI movement is tantamount to government in groups, placing membership of minority groups above individual merit, and that instead of employing the right people for the right job, it uses other criteria than merit. To include some is necessarily to exclude others. And it adds nothing to productivity. Indeed, it detracts from it.

Madsen Pirie