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Senedd Conservatives criticise Welsh Government for employing diversity officers

25 Apr 2022 2 minute read
Andrew RT Davies outside the Pierhead in Cardiff Bay.

The Conservatives in the Senedd have criticised the Welsh Government for employing four diversity officers.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that “there are four staff in roles which have responsibility solely or predominantly for diversity issues in the Welsh Government” at a cost of £151,436.62.

Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said that employing these officers showed that the Welsh Government was more interested in “woke” issues than in dealing with everyday problems like the cost of living crisis.

“£150,000 is not going to solve the cost-of-living crisis – but spending money on redundant, woke jobs shows a complete lack of perspective and priority within the Labour Government when it comes to spending public money,” he said.

“Not only that, it seems that having diversity officers is not producing positive results, with any progress being very slow.

“I think spending this much money on this many people to tell the Labour-run Welsh Government that they should hire people based on demographic characteristics rather than on merit and the content of their character suggests something is deeply wrong within its recruitment practices, or that it is more concerned with virtue-signalling than achieving actual results.”

‘Crucial’

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We want to be an organisation which reflects the full diversity of Wales.

“Our staff should be able to be themselves in the workplace as we deliver on our commitments to build a stronger, fairer, greener Wales. These roles play a crucial part in making this happen.”

In the Welsh Government Employer Equality Report for 2020/21, released last month, the Welsh Government Bord Equality Champion, Andrew Jeffreys, said that they knew there was “still a way to go before we reflect the diverse country that we serve”.

However the change to working patterns due to the pandemic had also provided them with “new opportunities,” he said.

“We are moving towards a more flexible and inclusive way of working that can benefit everyone,” he said. “We are embracing the technology that allows us to work effectively and collaboratively wherever we are.

“We have moved to online and virtual events, learning & development programmes and recruitment. This has given us greater geographical equality in our workplace than we have seen before.”


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Paul
Paul
1 year ago

Our little purple sweaty screaming robot voiced fascist wannabee piles in with hate speech once more. Yawn.

Cat
Cat
1 year ago

“Middle aged white man complains about diversity”. Yawn.

Gareth
Gareth
1 year ago

In the little Tory mind of RT, there is no need for these positions, because if minorities have a problem, they can go to Rwanda.

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
1 year ago

When did he come out with this tosh? It wouldn’t happen to be just before the Mail on Sunday published another bit of Tory Mysogeny. Looks to me like a concerted Tory campaign to distract their ctitics from Partygate and the unsuitability of De Piffle for the current post he occupies. I will not say ‘the job he does’ because it is clear that he has not been doing the job for a long time.

Paul
Paul
1 year ago

Conservatives seem hell bent on creating a culture war.

The Original Mark
The Original Mark
1 year ago

How many tories have been reported for sexual misconduct recently, how many of the nasty little parasites have come out to defend people trafficking and despite the Met’s best efforts to ignore the tories lawbreaking how many are still trying to defend the tories lawbreaking, but here we are, Davies has another chance to use the word “Woke” in a statement, wow! if this is the best he can do, it’s not just Johnson who needs to watch his back.

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago

Here we go again. The mouth has spoken but as usual nothing worth listening to comes out. Just look at the inflammatory rhetoric used by Andrew RT Davies. The Welsh Government are more interested in “woke”issues. This is the bigoted lazy language of GB News, UKIP, Abolish & BNP. And he wonders why most sensible voters in Wales see the Conservative party as political pariahs.

Gareth Westacott
Gareth Westacott
1 year ago

I completely agree. What the hell do four ‘diversity officers’ do all day. For God’s sake, spend the money on struggling Welsh families

Kerry Davies
Kerry Davies
1 year ago

Then you and RT need to get elected to Westminster and repeal the 2010 Equality Act which his party has not touched in 12 years. They must support these jobs or they would have scrapped the UK laws making them necessary.

Fi yn unig
Fi yn unig
1 year ago

When politicians use the word ‘woke’ in a pejorative manner, they are clearly aligning themselves with the now sadly, and since last night, TWO dedicated hate speech channels now available for snarling intolerants to enjoy. These platforms which use the word ‘free’ to conceal ‘hate’ followed by ‘speech’ demonstrate perfectly what an increasingly sick world we live in.

Woke and proud
Woke and proud
1 year ago

This is the same Andrew RT right???  In 2019, Davies was reported by Wales Online as having the highest budget for constituency office spending of any AM in the five Assembly political groups, with a spend of £102,655, including £35,182 for a salary for his wife Julia. WELSH Conservative Senedd leader Andrew RT Davies has spent nearly £30,000 on postage stamps over the past six years – almost double the amount spent by the other 59 Senedd Members in total. And by using stamps instead of a franking machine, Mr Davies has spent more taxpayers’ money than would have been the case… Read more »

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