Back in November 2005, Whitehall’s big hitters gathered in Bafta’s headquarters in Piccadilly to attend the launch of the civil service’s new 10-point plan for delivering a diverse civil service. Speaking at the event, Sir Gus O’Donnell said that he wanted the civil service to be “a beacon for change” because “a truly representative workforce, including at the most senior levels, will enable policies and services to be developed in ways which will result in better outcomes for everyone in society”.

Sir Gus has entrusted delivery of the 10-point plan to Waqar Azmi, the chief diversity adviser at the Cabinet Office. Azmi, who had himself developed the proposals following a review of equality and diversity in Whitehall, is aiming to achieve by 2008 the agreed targets of 37 per cent of the senior civil service (SCS) to be women; 30 per cent of top management posts to be filled by women; 4 per cent of the SCS to be from minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds; and 3.2 per cent of the SCS to be disabled people.

So how’s it going so far? Unfortunately, it’s a little too early to tell – we will have to wait for data to be released in December 2008 – but Azmi is quietly confident that if departments do everything they’ve said they would do, then we would be able to meet these targets. He points out that significant progress has been made since the 10-Point Plan was brought in. BME representation in the SCS has increased from 2.4 per cent (67 people) in 2003 to just under 3.5 per cent (118 people) in 2006, and that of women in the SCS from 27.5 per cent (1,059) in 2003 to 31.2 per cent (1,288) in October 2006. Disability increased from 2.1 per cent (68) in 2003 to 2.8 per cent (101) in 2006.

“This substantial change has come about because of the 10-Point Plan and is particularly significant in comparison with the base rate of some departments,” he says. “Some of these were very, very low. Some people ask me why we can’t set a 50 per cent or higher targets for some groups, but you can’t when the base rate for some of the biggest departments could be as low as zero – it would be nonsensical and tokenistic because there is really no way it is going to be met. If you take a businesslike approach then it has to be a target that is realistic, but also robust.”

One can surmise that much of Azmi’s approach stems from lessons learned during his career in the private sector. Previously he was managing director of equality and diversity at the global firm TMP/Monster Worldwide. He was also a member of the Oldham Riots Inquiry and chief executive of Worcestershire Racial Equality Council. He founded the British Federation of Racial Equality Councils, Herefordshire Race Equality Partnership and Race Equality West Midlands, and has also researched and published widely on equality and diversity issues.

In his role as government’s chief diversity adviser, Azmi spends a good deal of his time outside the Cabinet Office, getting out and about meeting permanent secretaries, HR chiefs and other colleagues across Whitehall. However, the key element is building capability across departments in order to drive forward diversity. “The way we do this is via the 10-point plan because this is a very robust framework with which to drive change across central government,” he says. “It has ten key areas where we want to see change.”

A cross-Whitehall infrastructure is in place to support the delivery of the plan, he adds. “Each department has a delivery plan but we also bring all of them together at senior level via what we call the ‘diversity champions’ network’. Each department’s diversity champion is normally the permanent secretary or a board level person. We bring them together to look at progress and share good practice, and we have a number of sub-groups which look at specific cross-Whitehall issues.”

Azmi and his colleagues in the Cabinet Office use a business delivery model approach where departments’ delivery plans and progress are reviewed and traffic-lighted. “So red means there is ‘serious concern’, amber is ‘significant weaknesses’, and so on,” he explains. “Doing a review of every single department and supporting them is a key responsibility but the 10-point plan has been a very powerful empowerment tool to drive change across departments, and that is why everyone talks about it. It is highly visible – not just internally but externally too. For example, we’ve had companies like Deloitte come here to observe us and see how we are making such significant progress on the diversity agenda. Thanks to the plan, for the first time we have clarity as to where we want to go and what we want to achieve, supported by a robust cross-Whitehall delivery infrastructure.

Azmi is also keen to stress that a significant milestone was reached when diversity became part of the criteria by which permanent secretaries are judged. From now on, they are accountable for the diversity of their departments and it’s clear that Azmi believes that this is a crucial development.

“Diversity has always been a bit of a woolly area,” he observes. “People talk about it a lot and say they are committed to it but we have made significant progress in linking diversity outcomes to each permanent secretary’s performance ratings and department’s targets. We are also including diversity on anonymous staff surveys to measure the inclusivity and the culture of each organisation. We look at the staff surveys and if necessary we look to improve the results. We also look at the overall business of each department in terms of its mainstream work. These are the key areas and it is very powerful because nobody has ever done that. Just like reducing hospital waiting lists or increasing pupil attainment levels are key business targets, diversity has to become a key business target if we are really serious about achieving it – you can’t say that your performance will be measured on certain areas and then leave diversity out of the performance criteria.”

Asked why the civil service has been, historically, so unrepresentative of the society it serves, Azmi points to a variety of factors. “Our country, like others in the world, has traditionally been male dominated in both leadership and representation,” he says. “Organisational culture, therefore, developed around the needs of men, rather than women, and the recognition that they can be effective in senior positions and do the job that men do has been a real struggle over the years. And there is also the culture that did not encourage women to achieve a good work/life balance.”

But in terms of BME staff joining the civil service, Azmi says that there are other explanations. “The civil service was not flexible enough and there are also questions as to whether the first waves of immigrants were aware enough of the opportunities the civil service presented, and whether there was trust by the state to involve and recruit them,” he claims. “So again there has been lots of hard work by the country as a whole in terms of moving towards equality for everyone. And then there are disabled people. Again, in the past disabled people were seen as people who were not suitable for work and there was a very prejudicial view of them – they were mocked as if they were alien. Look at buildings, in the past they were constructed with able-bodied people in mind, but we’d hope this would be unthinkable today.”

Looking ahead to the future, Azmi says that he will be focusing on getting Whitehall’s leadership to deliver on their commitments. “The cabinet secretary and the prime minister have been very clear about the type of civil service they want to see. It’s not only a necessity for the relevance of the civil service, but crucial if it is to be fit for purpose.”

[source: www.civilservicenetwork.com]