Policy paper

Diversity strategy 2018 to 2025 (accessible)

Updated 6 October 2022

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Foreword

I am delighted to introduce Inclusive by Instinct, the Home Office’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. This strategy marks a step change in putting Diversity and Inclusion at the heart of who we are as an organisation to create a better Home Office. This in turn will support The Civil Service’s ambition to become the most inclusive employer by 2020.

Philip Rutnam Permanent Secretary Home Office

I recognise that there is still a way to go to becoming Inclusive by Instinct. I will strive to lead from the front when it comes to this agenda, as I know that getting it right is critical. We have made good progress in creating a diverse and inclusive Home Office but we are not yet representative of the communities which we serve. We also have work to do to nurture a culture of inclusion where we can all be ourselves and where it is safe to challenge constructively. But if we work together, we are more likely to create success and fulfilment for all of us and, together, do our best work. This strategy strives towards better representing the people and communities we serve and creating a more inclusive working environment. Within both of these areas, we have set ambitious goals to guide our efforts, measure progress and hold ourselves to account.

The success of our ambition will require individual leadership beyond senior leadership team to bring our vision of A Brilliant Civil Service to life. Everyone must read this document and take an active role in helping us to achieve its aims. In doing so, we will create an environment that is Inclusive by instinct and a Great Place to Work.

Why Diversity and Inclusion matters to us

Inclusive by Instinct will help us better serve the public, uncover new ways of doing things and keep our people engaged.

Our mission is to protect the UK by keeping citizens safe and our borders secure. Our priorities are to prevent terrorism, cut crime, control immigration, promote growth and transform the Home Office. Creating a diverse and inclusive Home Office is imperative to achieving these objectives.

We are already making our workplace a more diverse and inclusive place and have been recognised for our achievements

Winner

Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion, 2016 Tapping into Talent

Winner

Business in the Community Race Equality Awards, 2017 BAME’s got talent

Highly Commended Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index, 2017

The Spectrum Network

Winner

The Times Top 50 Employer’s for Women 2017

A brilliant Home Office for our people and the public

By bringing together differences in an inclusive environment, we will achieve better results. We will do this because of the following reasons.

Representing modern Britain in all its diversity to deliver the best outcomes for the UK

We exist to serve the UK population. To do this to the best of our ability, we must understand and reflect the diverse and changing population of the UK.

Differences in thought and outlook lead to ideas and new ways of doing things Everyone brings their own unique perspective and outlook. By creating a listening and engaging culture where people can have the confidence to share ideas, together we can identify new ways of doing things.

Attracting and retaining the best talent

The more inclusive our environment, the more likely it is that everyone will fulfil their potential. We want to reach out to diverse communities and ensure they get the best out of the Home Office as an employer. When we can be ourselves, we perform better, enjoy ourselves and stay with the Home Office for longer.

Everyone is unique.

By ensuring that we are an organisation which is representative of our society both in who we are and how we are, we can truly learn, expand and flourish in service of our important mission. Being valued for our contributions and being appreciative of others unlocks potential for us as individuals and as teams.

Paula Leach, Chief People Officer

What does Inclusive by Instinct mean for everyone at the Home Office?

• An environment where we can all be ourselves

• Working with talented people from a wide range of backgrounds

• An environment where we can all perform to the best of our abilities

• Working in a supportive and flexible environment led by inclusive and effective leaders

• A culture where we can raise ideas and challenge one another in a respectful way to arrive at the best decisions

• A place where we understand and respect each others differences

Inclusive by Instinct means a great place to work

Our ambition is to become Inclusive by Instinct

We have set ambitious objectives to help us become Inclusive by Instinct by 2025.

Home Office Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2018 – 2025

• Evidence led

• Transparent

• Led by effective and skilled leaders

• Communications and engagement led Our objectives

Our approach

We will challenge ourselves to do all we can to ensure that Diversity and Inclusion is central to everything that we do by 2025. To ensure that we are moving in the right direction, we will formally evaluate our progress against Inclusive by Instinct in 2020.

The Home Office is a unique organisation within the Civil Service. We will ensure all of our efforts are specific and relevant to our context whilst being consistent with our overarching Civil Service aspiration to become the UK’s most inclusive employer by 2020. We will make sure our progress matches the scale and pace of the change required across the Civil Service.

Our objectives

Thriving in an Inclusive Environment

1. All of our leaders and teams will behave inclusively by instinct

2. We will achieve a positive shift in our workplace culture

Representing Modern Britain

3. Widen representation and build a talent pipeline of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, people with disabilities, women, and lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals

4. Attract, engage and retain people from a range of generations, faith and belief systems, gender identity and expression and socio-economic backgrounds.

What role we must all play in becoming Inclusive by Instinct

To truly be Inclusive by Instinct, everyone must be engaged and accountable for this ambition. Every business area will have an objective to increase representation to better reflect the economically active rates in the general population. Each of our leaders has a Diversity and Inclusion objective, and local Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans will be created for each business area. Our leaders will be supported and held accountable for their efforts in driving this strategy. We will also regularly report our progress to the Cabinet Secretary.

Diversity and Inclusion champions, Equality and Diversity Action Groups (EDAGs) and employee networks will all contribute to successful implementation of this strategy. Our employee networks comprise of:

• GEN (gender);
• The NETWORK (Race);
• ABLE (Disability);
• Spectrum (LGBTI+);
• a:gender (Trans and Intersex)

and five faithbased groups from Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim beliefs.

What we will do

To become Inclusive by Instinct, we will widen representation and create an inclusive environment. We cannot realise the benefits of Diversity and Inclusion without a relentless focus on both of these things.

We have set seven ambitious objectives to guide our efforts and hold ourselves to account. Underpinning each of these goals is a set of initiatives and priorities that we will pursue. These are summarised later in this document.

How we will do it

Everything we do as part of this strategy will be:

Evidence led

Our interventions will be based on evidence such as representation data, employee engagement scores and feedback. We will measure our progress in the lead up to 2025 and we will formally review progress in 2020. We will contribute to the broader

Civil Service monitoring and use our data to inform our strategic workforce planning ambitions.

Transparent

We will report upon progress in a transparent way. We will be honest in communicating where progress may not have been achieved and we will engage internally and externally to address this. We will seek out feedback on how well we are delivering against this strategy. We will embed Diversity and Inclusion into our organisational governance to give us clear oversight of how we are progressing.

Led by effective and skilled leaders

Leaders will be empowered to drive this strategy. We will embed Diversity and Inclusion into all business areas with leadership objective setting, inclusion training, and promotion of the positive behaviours we expect from everyone which is intolerant of discrimination, bullying and harassment.

Communications and engagement led

We will actively listen to each other. We will all be invited to help make the Home Office a great place to work. By doing this we will improve our engagement scores in the people survey.

Thriving in an inclusive environment

Everyone in our workforce is unique and brings their own individual perspectives. We represent different age groups, socio-economic backgrounds, faith and beliefs. To gain the benefits of this diversity we must embed an inclusive culture where everyone feels comfortable voicing their own opinions and ideas. We will create a workplace culture which encourages all of us to be ourselves at work.

An inclusive culture leads to engaged people, increases productivity, reduces turnover and sickness rates and delivers better outcomes for the public. Everyone, whether we’re from a currently underrepresented group or not, has a role to play in creating a more inclusive culture.

What challenges do we face today?

In line with our commitment to be transparent, it is important that we all understand the need for change and the evidence behind it.

We must significantly reduce instances of bullying, harassment and discrimination

Our reported experiences of bullying, harassment and discrimination through the People Survey remain higher than the Civil Service average. In 2017:

• 17% of our people said they personally experienced discrimination at work

• 14% of our people said they personally experienced bullying or harassment at work

We have seen a small decrease of 2% in our bullying and harassment figures since 2016. More people who have experienced bullying and harassment at work also go onto report it (an increase of 3% since 2016). However, this remains a concern. We do not tolerate this behaviour and will act decisively should it occur.

We need to better engage everyone at the Home Office

Our 2017 People Survey highlighted some key areas which we must monitor and improve on in order to create an inclusive environment:

• 58% of colleagues responded to the survey. We must ensure a wider range of views are captured

• The overall engagement index was 56%, which is below the Civil Service average. We will strive to increase this as we recognise that engagement and inclusion are closely linked

• 39% of respondents felt that it is safe to challenge. We will monitor and improve upon this as an indicator of inclusion

• We are less likely to feel engaged if we have a disability, are male, are Black, Black British or mixed race or are not heterosexual

Thriving in an inclusive environment: Our objectives

1: All of our leaders and teams will behave inclusively by instinct

We will measure progress through the following:

Increase

• The percentage of people who feel that it is safe to challenge, captured through people surveys

• Perceptions of consistency of leadership behaviours with our values

• Perceptions of visible leadership as indicated in people surveys

Decrease

• Number of complaints and grievances

Objective 1:

Effective and skilled leaders taking individual responsibility will be key to delivering our ambition. Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) will be woven through all of our management and leadership programmes. Everyone must role model and engage with the D&I agenda for us to make real progress.

We will achieve this by:

Holding our leaders to account for inclusion

• Empower leaders by embedding D&I objectives into all business areas.

• Include an inclusion standard within our performance and capability frameworks.

Building line manager confidence in inclusion

• Build managers’ awareness of D&I issues and provide development opportunities to grow our capability in inclusive leadership.

Developing standards for inclusive leadership

• Work in partnership with the Cabinet Office and Chartered

Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) to establish quality standards for inclusive leadership which value and embed inclusive behaviours.

• These standards will be central to through our approach to career pathways, selection and performance management.

We all have a duty to value and appreciate each other. If we can all do that, we will get the best from everyone and create an inclusive workplace.

Julian Smith, Great Place to Work Leadership Team.

2: We will achieve a positive shift in our workplace culture

We will measure progress through the following:

Increase

• People engagement scores as a department and our ranking against other departments and organisations

• Diversity data declaration rates

Decrease

• Number of bullying, harassment and discrimination incidents

• Disparity in performance management outcomes

• Disparity in engagement scores between diversity groups

Objective 2:

We will achieve this by:

Promoting positive behaviours and tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination:

• Promote the positive behaviours we expect of everyone which includes being intolerant of any discrimination, bullying and harassment.

• Build on the positive work done so far by empowering everyone to relentlessly challenge inappropriate behaviours.

Implementing culture audits across the Home Office

• Understand how culture and values impact workplace behaviours by undergoing culture audits in line with the rest of the Civil Service. We will use this to guide where action needs to be taken within our organisation to facilitate cultural change.

Improving declaration and prefer not to say rates across all diversity strands

• Understand why, in some cases, we do not all feel comfortable disclosing diversity data to identify areas of cultural issues which we can combat.

Reviewing our HR policies

• Strive for best practice across our policies and processes.

• Review policies to ensure that we respect, reflect and can respond appropriately to our diverse needs.

• Understand the implications of demographic change for employee relations policies.

Engaging everyone in Inclusive By Instinct

• Engage everyone at the Home Office in making it a great place to work.

• Promote the Home Office as an employer of choice to attract and retain diverse talent through relentless communication and engagement.

• Identify and inhibit discrimination through awareness campaigns.

Enhancing our approach to flexible working

• Empower managers to offer flexible ways of working for their teams and adopt smarter working principals.

Improving our methods of measuring inclusion

• Develop a mechanism to define socio-economic background. This will allow us to consider what policy actions we can take to be more inclusive of people from a wider range of social backgrounds, tapping into a broader talent pool.

• Understand the generational differences of our workforce to enable us to meet the needs of the business as well as attract and retain the right skills and talent.

Representing a modern Britain

By 2025, we will aim to represent the diversity of modern Britain to meet the needs of the country. We have set ambitious objectives to tackle underrepresentation of women, people with disabilities, lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people.

We will prioritise objectives for diversity strands where there is most notable underrepresentation but remain committed to tackling underrepresentation across all other areas such as age, gender identity and expression, faith and belief and socioeconomic background.

A person’s identity consists of multiple cross cutting characteristics (intersectionality). We will therefore develop our approach to understanding this and tackling cross cutting D&I issues.

What challenges do we face today?

We must be more representative of the UK’s economically active population

We aspire to be fully representative of the economically active population in the UK (the population working or seeking work). In some areas we are already ahead of the curve so we will aim to maintain this. In other areas, we have more work to do and so we have set aspirational objectives in recognition of this.

UK economically active population

BAME 13%

Disability 12%

Female 47%

LGB 5-7%*

• Sourced from Government reports introducing Civil Partnership legislation

Underrepresentation is particularly apparent for SCS grades.

Current representation and 2025 objectives (%)

BAME

	All staff	Senior Civil Service
Current	24%	6%
2025	24%	12%

DISABILITY

	All staff	Senior Civil Service
Current	9%	3%
2025	12%	5%

FEMALE

	All staff	Senior Civil Service
Current	52%	39%
2025	52%	47%

LGB

	All staff	Senior Civil Service
Current	3%	5%
2025	6%	6%

How well do we represent the communities which we serve?

	Representative of the UK population for all staff?	Representative of the UK economically active population for all staff?
BAME	Currently representative	Currently not representative
Disability	Currently not representative	Currently not representative
Women	Currently representative	Currently not representative
LGB	Currently not representative	Currently not representative

3: Strengthen the BAME talent pipeline at all levels. Increase representation at SCS level to 12% whilst maintaining our overall representation of 24%

Our Access Programme was developed in collaboration with our colleagues from the Home Office equality diversity and inclusion and Talent teams. We had 20 participants of middle management grade and above, but attracted over 150 applications. Over 60% of the programme alumni have now achieved promotion within the last year.

Hamid Motraghi, Chair of THE NETWORK

As the new Chair of the Race Board it is important to me that we make the Home Office a great place to work and continue to strengthen our BAME talent pipeline at all levels to reflect our diverse customers and to help us deliver better services.

Scott McPherson, Director General for Crime, Policing and Fire Group and Champion for Race

Objective 3.1:

Nearly a quarter of us are from BAME communities. This positive figure stands above the economically active population in the UK and compares favourably to the Civil Service BAME population as a whole. However, we want to continue strengthening our BAME talent pipeline at all levels, particularly at SCS levels. There will be a relentless focus on tackling this persistent underrepresentation through positive action, talent programmes and targeted support for high performing BAME staff. We will act to reduce gaps in performance appraisal outcomes and improve the experience for our BAME staff and reduce “prefer not to say” responses in declaration rates.

We will achieve this by

Embedding Positive Action initiatives:

• We will use Positive Action initiatives to broaden our BAME talent pool. We will strengthen our talent attraction and selection processes to combat unconscious bias through using diverse interview panels.

• Use Positive Action Statements in all targeted recruitment campaigns for grades AA-SCS.

Addressing disparities in performance management outcomes:

• Building on our revamped performance management process, we will identify hot spots of disproportionality to identify trends and put actions in place to better understand and address them.

Attracting and retaining BAME talent through Corporate Talent Programmes:

• Address barriers to progression through The NETWORK and BAME Champions and the Home Office Shadow Race Board.

• Ensure Talent Committees in business areas create stretching opportunities to nurture identified high potential BAME staff.

• Continue to support our award-winning BAME Access Programme and the Civil Service wide Positive Action Pathways and Future and Senior Leaders Schemes.

• Ensure The NETWORK continues to be one of the strongest BAME networks across government, using its expertise and commitment to deliver improved outcomes.

Developing a BAME sponsorship programme:

• We will support and develop high performing BAME individuals through a Career Watch Programme and underrepresented groups through SCS mentoring circles.

Strengthen the talent pipeline of people with disabilities at all levels. Increase representation at SCS level to 5% and overall representation to 12%. Improve understanding of the importance of mental health and wellbeing

Collectively we must ensure that no one feels excluded because of a hidden or visible disability or fear that they cannot fulfil their potential in the Home Office.

Mark Thomson, Director General UK Visas & Immigration and Her Majesty’s Passport Office and Champion for Disability

Objective 3.2:

We will increase the representation and engagement of people with disabilities across all grades. We will better attract and retain people with disabilities and create an environment where people feel comfortable disclosing this. Having achieved the status of Disability Confident Leader Level 3 in 2017, we will now focus on getting the workplace adjustments process right. This is our first priority in creating an inclusive workplace for colleagues with disabilities. As part of this strategy, we have developed a plan with business experts and the ABLE network to do this.

We will achieve this by

Reducing the engagement gap:

• Create an environment in which colleagues with disabilities are engaged and feel comfortable declaring their disability through a communications campaign. This will help us better understand the composition of our workforce.

• We will work with internal and external stakeholders to eliminate incidents of bullying and harassment amongst colleagues with disabilities.

• Maintain our network of Mental Health First Aiders across the organisation and provide access to training to assist managers in improving their capability to address colleague mental health and wellbeing issues and make necessary adjustments.

• Continue to support the ‘Time to Change’ campaign and strengthen our links with external providers to ensure that there is adequate provision for all colleagues who need support on mental health related issues.

Improving the talent pipeline for colleagues with disabilities:

• Develop a bespoke talent offer for colleagues with a disability to include mentoring and shadowing.

• Actively promote, encourage and sponsor applications to cross government talent schemes to provide development opportunities to our disabled talent.

• Sponsor colleagues with disabilities who have been on talent schemes.

Building Line Manager disability confidence in disability issues:

• Better equip Line Managers to be disability confident by providing training to all managers. We will develop a myth busting campaign on non-visible disabilities.

Getting workplace adjustments right:

• Review our HR policies and practices ensuring that these are aligned to and enable our D&I aspirations.

• Support ABLE, our disability network, so that they are able to support their members and non-members.

Strengthen the female talent pipeline at all levels. Increase representation at SCS level to 47% whilst maintaining our overall representation of 52%

Each one of us can be a leader of influence by taking on bold pragmatic action to accelerate gender parity. The Home Office is proud to have people like you who are committed to help both men and women achieve their ambitions, challenge unconscious bias and create inclusive flexible cultures within our workplace.

Kuljit Sagoo, Chair of the GEN network

We need to have the right culture where women can thrive and have their voices heard on parity with men; we need to create a stronger and more diverse gender pipeline so we can widen our gender representation at SCS.

Paul Lincoln, Director General, Border Force and Champion for Gender Equality

Objective 3.3:

We will build on our good work already done on gender equality. However, we recognise that we have more to do. We must build a talent pipeline at all stages and better understand the reasons why female representation falls at particular levels.

We will also continue our work to address the gender pay gap through reconsidering our long term approach to pay and reward. We will also seek to better understand the contributing factors to the gender pay gap to enable it to be addressed.

We will achieve this by

Challenging the barriers that prevent women from progressing:

• Embed flexibility and work-life balance into our organisational culture into our organisational culture for both men and women.

• Understand other barriers inhibiting female progression and develop programmes to address this.

• Continue to support our Return to Work programme. This provides a bridge back to work for experienced professionals who have taken an extended career break for typically two years or more. This aims to strengthen the talent pipeline, increase diversity and improve attraction and retention rates.

Nurturing the internal female talent pipeline:

• We have been continuously focussed on addressing gender balance at SCS level and so have developed a range of programmes in support of this.

• Be proactive in communicating our desire to achieve gender parity.

• Equip and empower our female talent with the right tools to develop in their career.

• Work with senior and influential male allies to identify and support our female talent.

• Develop a sponsorship programme aimed at nurturing high performing women.

Addressing the gender pay gap:

• Reconsider our long-term pay and reward framework.

• Examine data to understand drivers of the gender pay gap.

Strengthen the talent pipeline of LGB individuals to achieve 6% representation at all levels including SCS

As a gay woman, being able to be myself and bring myself to work everyday is vital. Ensuring that others are also able to truly be themselves is also very important to me and has driven me to do what I can to work towards equality in this space. Through Spectrum, I have a vehicle that allows me to do this.

Stephanie Aitken, member of the Spectrum network

As the LGBTi+ Champion for the Home Office I am passionate about creating an inclusive environment at work. We can all give our best when we have the freedom to be ourselves without fear of discrimination. I want the Home Office to have PRIDE in our people.

Charu Gorasia, Director General of Capabilities and Resources and LGBTI+ Champion

Objective 3.4:

At the Home Office, we have made important advances in ensuring that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI+) colleagues can be their authentic selves in the workplace. The 2017 People Survey results saw an increase in engagement levels of LGB colleagues*. However, although declaration rates are fairly even across all grades of LGB colleagues, only 3% of Home Office colleagues have declared as being LGB, which is significantly lower than the estimated 5-7% figure for the UK economically active population. In 2017, 10.7% of LGB colleagues stated that they had experienced bullying, harassment and discrimination. We will drive improvements in this area along with the capturing and monitoring of gender identity data which we currently do not capture.

Although we have set an objective to improve representation of LGB colleagues, we will drive improvements in meeting the needs of our trans people, starting with the capturing of data on gender identity and expression.

We will achieve this by

Improving LGBTI+ prefer not to say rates:

• Further investigate the reasons why there are high ‘prefer not to say’ rates with respect to sexual orientation in some areas of the business.

• Analyse all new LGBTI+ data as it emerges to guide our actions.

Developing targeted programmes to attract and develop LGBTI+ talent:

• Review how we attract and develop our people and identify methods to combat the disproportionality experienced by LGBTI+ talent.

Collecting data on gender identity/ trans status

• Implement a way to start capturing data on gender identity/trans status so that we can better understand needs in this area and guide actions in support of increasing representation and inclusion of trans people.

Eliminating bullying, harassment and discrimination:

• We will provide specific training for all colleagues and in particular line managers to address bullying and harassment issues identified amongst LGBTI+ colleagues.

• Ensure a zero bullying, harassment and discrimination approach is adopted in all areas.

• The Civil Service currently does not collect data on gender identity or trans status

4: Attract, engage and retain individuals from a range of generations, faith and belief systems and socio-economic backgrounds

It is a privilege to be the Champion for Faith and Belief, and to work with the network chairs and others to ensure we can bring our whole selves to the workplace. It has also been an opportunity for us to reflect on our common values, the things that bring us together.

David Lamberti, Director of Policing and Champion for Faith and Belief

Ensuring that people from the fullest possible range of backgrounds and circumstances can build their career here and achieve their full potential is a central part of our work.

Joanna Davinson, Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer and Champion for Social Mobility

Objective 4:

Although we have not set representation objectives for age, socio-economic diversity and faith and belief, ensuring that our workforce sufficiently represents these characteristics is no less important. We also recognise that a person’s identity is not defined in isolation but is made up of multiple dimensions. We will therefore maintain appreciation of this. We are committed to ensuring that we can all maximise our potential.

We will achieve this by:

Adapting processes and policies to account for generational differences

• Study generational differences and promote an inclusive workplace that values all colleagues irrespective of age where all colleagues feel valued.

• Ensure managers are confident in managing generational differences through coaching.

• Recognise the support required across all four generations and make reasonable adjustments as necessary.

• Provide flexibility in the use of workplace adjustments to support colleagues and ensure that they are given the opportunity to perform at their best throughout their career.

Better enabling social mobility through our attraction, recruitment and retention efforts

• ‘Open up’ the Home Office through events across the UK and better coordinate with external organisations in doing so.

• Improve our methods of understanding inclusion by measuring socio-economic background.

• Ensure our culture and processes are inclusive and supportive of a range of backgrounds when it comes to promotion and other opportunities, including through mentoring and myth-busting.

Ensuring that the Home Office is inclusive of all faiths and beliefs

• Create clear external messaging that people who practice a faith or hold a belief are welcome at the Home Office.

• Increase awareness of faith and belief diversity through our Faith and Belief Champions and Faith Networks.

We hope to build on the strategy to inform a shift in culture across the Home Office, recognising key problem areas and instilling change to ensure the Home Office is truly diverse and inclusive.

Glyn Williams, Director General Border, Immigration and Citizenship System Policy and Strategy Group and Intergenerational Champion.