The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has rejected a recommendation from MPs to enforce the larger charities it funds to publish their diversity data.
Last year, cross-party politicians on the International Development Committee (IDC) recommended that FCDO should require all organisations with more than 50 staff that it funds to publish diversity data on their workers as well as ethnicity pay gap figures.
The IDC said these requirements should help organisations including charities to identify if there are inequalities in their workforce that should be addressed.
But FCDO has now responded to the IDC’s recommendations and said that requiring organisations to record this data “may not always be either appropriate or possible, given the contexts in which the FCDO operates”.
FCDO said in its response that the Cabinet Office would be issuing guidance to any organisations that wish to voluntarily report their ethnicity pay gap data this year.
The department also said it publishes diversity information about its own staff annually.
Government ‘has had to make difficult decisions’ on aid cuts
In its original report, the IDC criticised the manner in which the government cut the international aid budget from 0.7% of Gross National Income to 0.5%.
They said the way in which this took place, with little to no consultation to its partners, “sent a harmful message that the UK does not care about the people affected - many of which are Black, indigenous and people of colour.”
FCDO responded that it has had to make difficult decisions about how to prioritise “the most critical aid spending in a context of economic contraction in the UK”.
Bond: ‘FCDO needs to address who has the power’
Stephanie Draper, chief executive of aid charity umbrella body Bond, welcomed the department’s response to the IDC’s report.
“The FCDO’s response is a welcome step forward on their journey to help build a more equitable sector. Bond and other colleagues across the sector have been working on this agenda for many years. We would be keen to support the FCDO and share experiences and learning to sustain momentum on this critical issue,” she said.
“As a starting point, we would encourage the FCDO to invest more time, resources, and effort to tackle the injustices of systemic racism across the sector. Efforts to become locally led should be rooted in anti-racism and racial equity, to avoid tinkering around the edges.
“Greater representation from Black people and people of colour does not automatically mean transformative change. Much like the sector, the FCDO needs to address who has the power, resources, support and who is making decisions.”
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