Jacob Rees Mogg revamping Civil Service training

[achillestoes]

It’s a sad day when you see Jacob Rees Mogg doing anything and you’re happy about it, but here we are. He is calling time on Civil Service training budgets being used for ‘ridiculous’ diversity courses that open the CS up to ‘mockery’ and don’t represent value for money. He’s writing to all government departments to make it clear that staff development should be about providing workers with the training needed to do their jobs.

I don’t like JRM but if anyone thinks the general public aren’t behind him on this, they’re deluded. Most people don’t believe training in your role should amount to moral indoctrination about your privilege, or requiring you to describe yourself within the frameworks of ideologies you don’t accept.

Because I think there are two reasons:

1. Cost-benefit: they cost more than they benefit.
2. They politicise the Civil Service, which is meant to operate on a politically neutral basis, and therefore they undermine normal democratic processes.

I think JRM is also a cost-cutting Tory and he would want to cut what he perceives as inefficiency even if I had more belief in the usefulness of these schemes, but I honestly don’t.

Jacob Rees Mogg was appointed minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency.

www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state-minister-for-brexit-opportunities-and-government-efficiency

This places him in a position to change these things as the Civil Service works to policies set by government with the appropriate ministers being responsible for specific ministry policy’s.
Why isn’t Jacob acting upon these things rather than just making announcements to the media?
Unless of course these are Jacob seeking unusual cases to generate outrage.

Equality & Diversity training is a mandatory requirement in Civil Service departments and is also a legal requirement across the UK. (Companies are responsible for not discriminating against protected characteristics and to ensure staff are appropriately trained / aware.)

Unconscious bias was treated as a seperate element for some time, but before the government announced it was being dropped most if not all Civil Service departments had actually already done so and had merged relevant elements into standard equality and diversity.

Like most training these are delivered as online courses* and you just need to complete the relevant multi choice questions (which in many cases you can go directly to instead of fully completing the same course every one, two or three years.

Unconscious bias and equality & diversity training are not all about using the right sex/gender/race words.
They are about what are protected characteristics and being self aware that everyone has their own biases. Not as PC reeducation but to recognise that you and I have our own life experiences and our own biases/stereotypes that we don’t actively think of.
Accept who you are and think of whether you are making decisions on facts or pre conception

• on occasion training is delivered by other means. For example an E&D presentation delivered by a training organisation that uses actors. I received this in an Army environment (MoD Civil Servant) and we believed the actors were ex army officers. This was not the case, they were all proper ‘luvvies’ - but they were good actors and acting out real life scenarios

Jacobs other recent project of leaving ‘while you were out’ sarcastic notes also contradicts the governments policy on Civil Service buildings.
For many years the government has been instructing departments to down size the estate and to promote hybrid home working.
With Covid they want more offices closed down ……. But the minister for Civil Service efficiencies that has a policy of increasing home working tells the media that he is leaving notes complaining when Civil Servants comply with his policy

….. It’s all as if it’s a distraction

"I’m not saying this is never going to be helpful, but I think it’s just as likely to be unhelpful. I don’t apologise unless I’m sorry. It’s just not something I do. I’m not sure it’s something women do."

It was a while ago so I don't have anything to hand, but the course provided references to the studies that the content was based on. I later went on to do a social science degree and looked a couple up. There was a fair bit of research in the US, Canada and the UK that supports the claim that women apologise quit a bit more than men (for various reasons, not just when they actually want people to shut up).

No one claimed that cultural differences that were associated with a class of people meant that everyone in that class performed exactly the same, though. The whole point of diversity training is to understand that your own experience does not define the experience of others.

If someone has a GRC the EA2010 states they are legally the sex they have transitioned to, so they are protected under both the sex and gender reassignment elements of the EA2010. So in that instance, yes they would be classed as a woman.

I didn't mention males with GRCs specifically. I dispute that including them means it's by sex, for one thing, and for another I completely don't buy that if a self identified MTF wanted to be counted as a woman and kicked up a fuss about it they would not be.

‘They are about what are protected characteristics and being self aware that everyone has their own biases. Not as PC reeducation but to recognise that you and I have our own life experiences and our own biases/stereotypes that we don’t actively think of.’

But this is based on what? How can any trainer decide they know my life experiences and probable biases? What is the evidential basis for the idea that we all or even most of us act on unconscious biases?

I have no issue whatsoever with training people about their legal responsibilities. That’s obvious.

100% agree.

NumberTheory

Right, well by all means if there is evidence that justifies training the whole Civil Service up in the belief that women apologise when they mean shut up, I’ll read it. But at the moment it sounds like people (well-meaning people) are spending a lot of money educating people on truisms and actually in stereotypes. I don’t know any women who have admitted to apologising when they mean shut up. I know loads who sit quietly through pointless training sessions, though.

How can any trainer decide they know my life experiences and probable biases?

They don't claim to. The training I've done has usually been about getting people to question and challenge their own unconscious biases.

I'm very surprised that a feminist wouldn't be able to recognise that bias (eg against women) is actually very common. And it has real effects when it comes to who gets the bonuses, who gets promoted, who gets given the interesting projects etc.

‘They don't claim to. The training I've done has usually been about getting people to question and challenge their own unconscious biases.’

Again, what is the evidence base for the existence of or stability in any group of people of unconscious biases? Where do you begin to ‘train’ people to recognise them, if they are unconscious?

‘I'm very surprised that a feminist wouldn't be able to recognise that bias (eg against women) is actually very common. And it has real effects when it comes to who gets the bonuses, who gets promoted, who gets given the interesting projects etc.’

I am very well aware that bias against women is common. I don’t think it is unconscious. Explain that it is not allowed to treat people worse on the basis of their sex at work, give some examples of how this plays out, let people do their jobs. All we’re doing by pretending that sexists are usually ‘not conscious’ of their sexism is giving them an excuse for it.

If a trainer is dealing with an unconscious bias course then they don’t claim to know what your life experience and biases are.
If they claim to then they do not understand the course.

Here’s a randomly selected presentation found on Google.

Note that it raises that we form our own bias from life to date and then asks the individual to reflect. You ought to be able to think about your own life experiences

www.chp.edu/-/media/chp/about-us/documents/volunteer/unconscious-bias-presentation.pdf?la=en

Do you think car manufacturers who use male crash test dummies (a) do so deliberately, because they want to die I'm car crashes, or (b) just use the dummy they've always used, without really thinking about it at all, without even recognising that the dummy is not representative, because the male body is what society has always seen as the default.

Sexism isn't always about deliberate, direct discrimination or violence. Same for racism.

^ because they want women to die in car crashes

You are correct - discrimination against women does not come purely from unconscious biases - and nobody is claiming that it does.

However - putting someone on a traditional equality course and telling them to not discriminate does not prevent unconscious biases against women
Adding unconscious bias raises the potential that a person also thinks twice.

tommika

But the first slide says ‘every person has unconscious biases. It’s hardwired into us.’

That is overly certain, unevidenced, and it cites Freud. Lots of people think he was a crank.

Then it tells me my background and experiences shape my personality for or against something. That’s not strictly true either. Of course it’s a possibility, but this states it as a certainty.

It’s pseudo-scientific nonsense.

It also tells me I’m likely to favour people who are like me. How is that consistent with my reactions being shaped by positive or negative experiences? What if everyone like me has been a complete dickhead towards me?

‘Adding unconscious bias raises the potential that a person also thinks twice.’

Maybe. I’d just like to see some evidence that it does before we spend millions on it.

Too late just like Jacob.

Millions have either already been wasted, or not spent due to online training. Everyone’s already moved on from specific Unconscious Bias

‘Everyone’s already moved on from specific Unconscious Bias’

But you think it might be a good idea to let them loose with the PowerPoint again?

I’m afraid I don’t.

And incidentally, the slides read like someone’s GCSE Sociology coursework. Nobody should be forced to psychoanalyse themselves at work because some under-qualified trainer comes in waving slides about Sigmund Freud, when if you asked them to actually discuss psychoanalysis they wouldn’t be able to get much further than ‘we have unconscious thoughts and I’ve decided yours look like mine’. The human brain can’t be reduced to sound bites like that.

"Extreme right winger"?

He might be a practicing catholic and follow his faith's teachings on abortion, but that hardly puts him in the same ball park as Le Pen.

By the way, as many people state on their bios, "retweets do not equal endorsement"

I’ve no doubt JRM is fairly right wing. But if not believing in excessive waste in the public sector is now some sort of ‘extreme right wing’ belief, you’ll find most people are now with him on the ‘extreme right wing’ of politics.

It’s just normal to think civil servants shouldn’t be wasting their time listening to self-credentialed ‘instructors’ explaining how Freud says they secretly dislike women, but so secretly that they’re unaware of it. It’s bullshit, and everyone knows it is.

I think they have practically admitted on another thread that they are trolling

Too many responses to their own thread though. 1/10

@antifascist
In 2017 that he was "completely opposed" to abortion including in cases of rape or incest.

Anyone who knows anything about Rees,Mogg knows he has a strong Catholic faith. This is what the Catholic Church preaches. He is very up front with his anti abortion beliefs which are tied to his religion not his politics.

Rees Mogg has endorsed the far right Alternative für Deutschland

No, he didn't. All he did was retweet a video AfD put out about Brexit and the EU. It's not a big surprise he supports Brexit! He definitively denied any support for AfD.

repeated antisemitic slurs about George Soros

Again not true and Labour peer Lord Dubs, who led the attack on Rees Mogg over supposed slurs against Soros, withdrew his comments and apologised to Rees Mogg for his remarks and jumping to conclusions.

I don't know is he's extreme right wing or not but none of these are examples of it. If you're making accusations against him, at least try to give examples that are true.

‘Anyone who knows anything about Rees,Mogg knows he has a strong Catholic faith. This is what the Catholic Church preaches. He is very up front with his anti abortion beliefs which are tied to his religion not his politics.’

It is. People don’t control their religious beliefs. I’m pro-choice but I’d struggle to terminate a pregnancy myself. I’d never comment on someone else’s choice because I haven’t walked in their shoes and I’m not their judge.

A very wise and measured approach