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Jacob Rees-Mogg scraps ‘absurd’ Civil Service diversity training

Jacob Rees-Mogg Jacob Rees-Mogg will write to secretaries of state asking them to review the courses being offered - PETER NICHOLLS/REUTERS
Jacob Rees-Mogg Jacob Rees-Mogg will write to secretaries of state asking them to review the courses being offered - PETER NICHOLLS/REUTERS

Jacob Rees-Mogg is banning all “absurd” wellness and diversity courses run in Whitehall.

In an attack on “wokery” in the Civil Service, Mr Rees-Mogg said only “intelligent, sensible” courses would be offered to officials in future.

He cited the example of a course run by his own department the Cabinet Office called  “Check Yo’ Privilege” as an example of “ridiculous” diversity training. The course teaches mandarins to be aware of their own privileged position whenever making pronouncements about wider society.

Mr Rees-Mogg, the Cabinet minister in charge of government efficiency, also questioned the motives of civil servants who took courses in their lunch hour, saying it was a “little bit cynical” that officials then went straight back to work rather than taking another hour to eat.

The minister has now ordered the Government’s learning and development hub to scrap any courses that “are subject to mockery” and replace them with only training useful to the actual job. Mr Rees-Mogg believes that “bad, mockable courses undermine our efforts to promote equality”.

Mr Rees-Mogg cited a further example of courses that should be blocked including a diversity training workshop run by the government legal department where mandarins were told to imagine a “Japanese gay grandfather” in an exercise on empathy and understanding.

Mr Rees-Mogg has no power to cancel training run by individual departments but he will now write to secretaries of state asking them to review the courses being offered.

‘There is work to be done’

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “There will be a new [training] curriculum coming which will stop these absurd courses being available. And they are particularly in diversity and wellness areas.”

Mr Rees-Mogg said that while the Civil Service was struggling to deliver public services - he cited problems at the Passport Office, the DVLA and the Office of the Public Guardian - then the luxury of “fancy” courses could not be afforded.

People queue outside the Passport Office on Friday as applications are delayed - Hollie Adams for The Telegraph
People queue outside the Passport Office on Friday as applications are delayed - Hollie Adams for The Telegraph

“There is work to be done, and there are only so many hours in the day and we want people using their hours productively,” he said. “Work is a serious place of business to deliver things for taxpayers who are paying politicians and civil servants for their time. We’ve got to be very careful when this time is used to do fancy courses, or not working at the office.”

“All I’m saying is that you need courses to actually help people in their daily work. And this is professionalism, it is identifiable skills. It mustn’t be wokery.”

He complained that a course offered by the Cabinet Office on communication skills - called Check Yo’ Privilege was “in its very name a politicised course”, adding: “It has a view of the world that is not shared by all political parties. I think the course was to explain to people how they’d had an unfair advantage in life and wasn’t that awful?

“But try and think of the opposite. What if you had a course, let’s say: “Celebrate your inner Eurosceptic?” which perhaps we should ask Nigel Farage if he was willing to do. The Civil Service would be outraged. But it’s comparatively a political subject.”

Central skills curriculum to be re-written

Civil servants sign up for courses - or else are mandated to do them - through the learning and development platform, run through the Cabinet Office.

Mr Rees-Mogg has now ordered its central skills curriculum be re-written.

He said it was “hard to see any economic value to the taxpayer” in courses called Check Yo’ Privilege “or indeed, particular value to the people doing them”, adding: “If a lot of the courses are open to ridicule, then nobody will want to do the sensible courses because it damages the whole reputation of civil service learning.

“So it’s not just about getting rid of courses because they are subject to mockery, although that mockery is deserved. It’s about getting rid of courses that damage the whole ethos of the Civil Service, and cost taxpayers money.”

The Civil Service is facing stark cuts with the Government committed to shedding 91,000 jobs - about a fifth of Whitehall - over the next three years.

He said training programmes on topics such as detecting fraud or improved procurement were vital going forward.

He said Check Yo’ Privilege was offered “over lunchtime” but warned: “Assuming that people take their lunch break to do it… Dare I say I’m a little bit cynical that when people do a course in their lunch hour, do they then not eat any lunch, or do they get back to their desk and take another lunch hour?”

It is unclear how many diversity and wellness training courses are available through the Civil Service and aides nor which ones will be ditched in the future.