'DEMOGRAPHICS AND DIVERSITY' – Dinner at The House of Lords
29th June 2004 – Discussion led by Sir Nicholas Montagu 

Sir Nicholas Montagu (former Chairman of the Board of The Inland Revenue and Permanent Secretary Diversity Champion and Chair of the Civil Service Management Board Diversity Group) led the discussion by making a number of observations regarding his own experience of developing diversity in the Inland Revenue:

• The business imperative for diversity was self-evident. To be successful, organisations must be able to attract the widest possible pool of talent and develop its potential. In addition, it was particularly important for a public service organisation like the Revenue to recognise the diversity of its customer population and meet their differing needs. This would enable people to get their affairs right first time, removing the need for non-value-added work by them or Revenue staff.

• It was vitally important that the scene should be set and diversity championed from the Board/chief executive down. (Sir Nicholas established and chaired a Diversity Advisory Group which met regularly. Its membership, by self-nomination, was drawn from all parts of the Department and all grades; members attended two meetings but remained on a virtual network, forming an invaluable and influential “Fifth Column” for diversity in their own units. Giving relatively junior staff direct access to the Chairman also served as a graphic illustration to them of his commitment.)

• Diversity policy and practice must be embedded in and owned by business units – not by Human Resources departments, whose role should be that of a specialist consultative resource to managers. The Revenue’s approach of “Business Through Diversity” put the onus on managers to think about which aspects of diversity, both internal and external, were critical to their objectives and should be built into their plans. The team’s performance would then be judged, inter alia, by evidence of their success in promoting diversity relevant to their activities.

• Consistency on the part of the top team was vitally important. Management and planning processes should be rigorously diversity-proofed and aligned with the organisation’s diversity strategy. And top management should seize every opportunity, e.g. in speeches, to emphasise the importance of diversity; it was better to bore people than to risk the perception that diversity had slipped lower down the agenda. 

• Role models are an important element in making progress

• Quotas and positive action were tricky areas. Quotas and positive discrimination were illegal, and rightly so; but targets and targeted initiatives could be valuable. Targets, if not achieved, could usefully focus minds on the reasons for failure; but it was important to avoid the less-committed thinking that, if targets had been met, no further activity was needed.

• There needs to be a recognition that the nature of work must change to accommodate changing attitudes – the sharing of domestic responsibilities including time spent with children etc. Flexi-time is needed and is popular.

• Encouraging staff to take up extra-mural activities with groups that are diverse in their membership can help eg Princes Youth Trust. Such activities also enable young members of staff to grow in confidence, developing talents they never knew they had and which can be deployed to the benefit of the organisation. Enabling people to develop and contribute to the maximum of their potential and inclination lay at the heart of a successful diversity strategy.

• Board members should have informal meetings with groups of staff to monitor progress on diversity and other matters

• Signals should be sent through internal communications and staff journals eg photos of diverse groups. Successes should be celebrated

• Sir Nicholas welcomed the creation of networks concentrating on the needs of particular under-represented or disadvantaged groups (e.g. gender, race, disability, sexuality), not only to champion their own rights but also to provide useful business and commercial intelligence to their organisation in its dealings with their minority or gender group.

The subsequent discussion was wide-ranging. It was felt important to demonstrate and evidence that a positive attitude to diversity was consistent and not in conflict with the commercial imperatives of an organisation. One guest who represented a major consumer oriented plc pointed out that his company had a majority of women in the key senior executive roles and that this had been achieved without an explicit Diversity Policy – rather a recognition that, as the majority of their customers were women it was better to have CEOs who understood the customer need. Another quoted some interesting statistics regarding his firm which he thought was fairly typical of the major law firms: the male/female ratio at partner level was 80/20, at manager level 55/45 and at new associate level 40/60 in favour of women. Other guests had noticed similar trends but it was pointed out that there was already evidence of women opting out as they rose further up the management tree. The reasons for this and the implications needed more analysis.

It was generally agreed that progress was being made on Diversity issues but it was felt that more remains to be done to get buy-in at all levels of organisations – and this takes leadership, time and persistence.