Our thanks to Graham for this. He writes:
“I thought you might be interested in the attached article from the Daily Express regarding HS2’s diversity-related spending.
A few extracts that stood out:
Joanna Davinson, the HS2 board member [J4MB: she’s a non-executive director] responsible for diversity, wrote that EDI “shapes how we think, lead and build the railway.” [J4MB: Maybe that helps explain why it’s a financial disaster.]
In the last financial year, £61 million was spent on diverse-owned suppliers – an increase of more than a third from the £44 million last year. This mainly involved businesses owned or majority-controlled by women and ethnic minorities.
The report states: “We define minority-owned businesses as those where women, ethnic minorities, LGBT or disabled people make up more than 50% of the partners or directors in day-to-day control of the business, or where a sole proprietor is from one of these groups.” [J4MB: I spend almost all my career in procurement. These businesses are landing contracts where otherwise they wouldn’t have, probably because their prices are uncompetitive.]
A spokesman for HS2 Ltd said: “We take our statutory commitments under the Equality Act seriously and set high standards for the thousands of businesses actively engaged in our supply chain. Through fair and inclusive recruitment practices, we are proud to have built a 33,000-strong workforce where female and ethnic minority representation exceeds industry averages.”
I’m curious about what statutory commitments under the Equality Act the HS2 spokesperson is referring to. The Act doesn’t mandate positive discrimination, so it’s unclear how their approach aligns with the legal framework set out in the Equality Act 2010.”
If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.
We shall shortly be posting this piece on our X channel.
Our YouTube channel is here.
Justice for Men & Boys 
As you say it doesn’t. The Equality Act prohibits the direct discrimination that is being described. Actually procurement is one of the ways that local authorities and other public bodies try to sidestep the legalities of the Equality Act. They make clear their “preference” for businesses headed by women or favoured ethnic minorities and/or make clear they favour businesses with a high proportion of female or specific ethnic minorities. Without making these actual prerequisites. Understandably companies/organisations bidding in a competitive process want to do everything they can to gain an edge on any other competitors. And so they do the unlawful things to achieve the most favourable bid. The outcomes are as the spokeswoman for HS2 says. But the procuring body has usually couched it in terms of “encourage”, “would like”, “demonstrate values” rather than explicit evaluation criteria. In effect transferring the legal risk( from employees passed over or sidestepped) to the bidding companies. Having been on both sides of the process I know that even in the VCSE sector people will change the memberships of boards, employ people into sinecures or just plain lie to appear more in line with the procuring body’s “aspirations”. This sort of thing isn’t challenged by the losing bidders because there is always the next contract, grant or project to bid for …. and whatever the law do you really want to create a fuss with the body/s you rely on when next time you might have got a couple more women on the board or got a few new “diverse” staff in sinecure roles ? Its an insidious process in which the legalities are sidestepped and few have any interest in rocking the boat.
LikeLike