‘Disbelief’ as under-manned Royal Navy seeks to re-deploy officers to diversity and inclusion team

Courtesy of Maritime News

Former First Sea Lord calls for the roles to be scrapped as the service faces personnel shortfalls
and missed targets

The Royal Navy is redeploying marines and sailors to become diversity and inclusion officers to enhance the
“lived experience” of personnel amid ongoing recruitment challenges in manning its ships.
Three internal Navy job advertisements, seen by The Telegraph, seek to attract serving sailors and marines
to work on diversity policy. The roles are based in Navy Command HQ [NCHQ] in Portsmouth and are
intended to “improve the lived experience of our people”.

A Navy source told The Telegraph: “At a time when we’re massively undermanned, why does NCHQ want
yet more people to concentrate on diversity and inclusion? You can imagine the sort of power-hungry social
justice warriors this will attract too. We’re already inclusive; diversity will increase in time with the
population.”

Lord West, who served as the First Sea Lord from 2002 to 2006, told The Telegraph: “Taking people from
key and important roles to focus on diversity is nonsense. The Royal Navy has lost the plot. “Obsessing over
diversity and inclusion actually leads to recruitment issues. One needs just to look at the RAF’s positive
discrimination schemes, which led to the exclusion of some white men. These diversity roles should be
scrapped immediately.”

The Navy is advertising a role as a diversity and inclusion officer for those ranked Lieutenant Commander or
Captain in the Royal Marines. The service is also looking for those ranked petty officers, chief petty officers,
sergeants or colour sergeants to transfer to a senior diversity and inclusion policy position. Marines and
those who are able seamen are invited to apply for a position in the Navy’s “climate assessment team”.
The Navy’s official diversity and inclusion policy document states that the service conducts climate
assessments “to provide all those in command with an independent assessment of the lived experience of
personnel”.

The document also outlines different diversity and inclusion roles in the Navy, including diversity advisors,
practitioners, and associates; the former two positions help advance “diversity and inclusion in the
workplace” while the latter is a more informal role for sailors of any rank to support official diversity officers
in their work within units.

The redeployment comes as the Royal Navy faces a significant recruitment crisis. In the year to March
2023, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines failed their recruitment targets by 27 per cent, representing a
shortfall of 1,037 personnel. Both organisations have failed to hit their recruitment targets every year since
2011.

Personnel problems are so acute that two warships, HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll, have had to be
decommissioned to staff a new class of frigates. Calls earlier this year to send the aircraft carrier HMS
Queen Elizabeth to the Red Sea following airstrikes on the Houthi rebels in Yemen were denied due to staff
shortages.

Last year, the Navy was criticised for wasting time and resources on diversity initiatives. In September
2023, The Telegraph revealed that an official guide on trans and non-binary awareness told sailors to
introduce their pronouns at the start of meetings and interactions. The guidance, which urged Navy staff to
“avoid micro aggressions like backhanded compliments and unhelpful tips,” was swiftly withdrawn for
review by the Ministry of Defence.

Lord West described the initiative as “confusing” and unhelpful for “the cohesion and fighting ability of the
Navy”. The navy also advertised diversity events for staff to attend for National Inclusion Week, held from
25 September to 1 October last year.

A Navy spokesperson said: “These roles are not new. For the Navy to be effective, we must be able to
recruit and retain the best people from the broadest cross-section of society, so the small number of
colleagues who conduct these responsibilities use their practical experience to help improve training and
working culture.” Source: The Telegraph

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