Sue Owen is set to replace Simon Fraser as the civil service's diversity champion when the Foreign Office permanent secretary leaves Whitehall at the end of July, it has been announced.
In a blog posted on GOV.UK on Monday night, cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood confirmed that Owen – who will continue in her role as permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – will succeed Fraser in the diversity champion post from August.
Heywood paid tribute to Fraser, saying the outgoing diversity champion had "spearheaded a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion across the civil service".
Related articles
Outgoing Whitehall diversity champion and FCO perm sec Simon Fraser interviewed by CSW
Civil service ‘prejudice’ a barrier to promotion, say officials from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds
Hold perm secs to account on civil service diversity or risk backsliding, says spending watchdog
And he said that Owen – who has served for the last year as civil service LGBT champion – had been "committed to inclusion in the workplace for many years".
Commenting on her appointment, Owen said she was "thrilled to be taking on this role at such an important time in the civil ervice’s journey".
"Under Simon’s stewardship we are clearer than ever on the barriers facing our colleagues from under-represented groups, and on what needs to be done to remove them. I look forward to working closely with my fellow permanent secretary champions to ensure that those actions become reality for civil servants all over the country."
Heywood also used the post to reveal that Jon Thompson, the most senior official at the Ministry of Defence, would take on the newly-created role of civil service social mobility champion, with a remit of helping to get more people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds into the service.
Announcing that the civil service would be commissioning new research into the barriers preventing entry to the civil for people from lower-income backgrounds, the MoD permanent secretary said the leadership in Whitehall knew it had "more to do on social mobility" and did not yet have "all the answers".
Thompson added: "The research we are commissioning will give us strong insights into the barriers faced by those looking to join the civil service from lower socio-economic backgrounds. I am excited about driving this work forward.
"Social mobility is something that is close to my heart – I went to a comprehensive school, took an apprenticeship at 18 and find myself now as the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence.
"I am passionate about encouraging individuals from all backgrounds to aim high and achieve their potential too, and in doing so to help the Civil Service become a truly socially inclusive employer."
The role of civil service diversity champion was created with the aim of coordinating Whitehall's efforts to improve the representation of disadvantaged groups in the civil service. The new appointments come just days after the National Audit Office spending watchdog warned that civil service leaders still had more work to do to improve diversity and inclusion, including setting out how permanent secretaries will be held to account under the new diversity "Talent Action Plan" published in the spring.
The Plan – which commits the civil service to an "intensive" two-year programme of help for departments and agencies so to "fully integrate diversity and inclusion into their business processes" – was launched in response to frank external research commissioned by the Cabinet Office which set out the barriers to career progression facing women, black and minority ethnic civil servants, LGBT officials, and those with disabilities or long-term health conditions.
In his final interview as diversity champion, Fraser told Civil Service World that while Whitehall was able to attract "a pretty diverse range of people into the civil service", people from under-represented groups seemed to face barriers as they "rise up the system" .
He added: "What these external reports show is that it’s harder for people from under-represented groups to rise up. So whereas 53% of the total civil service workforce are women, by the time you get to the senior civil service it’s only 38%, and indeed in the Foreign Office at that level I’m afraid it’s only 28%.
"I’ve been looking a lot at the barriers. I think there are issues around culture; there are issues around some unfairness, perhaps, in the performance appraisal system – whether that’s unconscious bias I don’t know [see box below]. There are issues around career structures and you know, of course, the fact that some women at a certain point may have children and then re-entry into their career becomes a challenge.
"There are actually issues about the way men and women behave differently, which we need to understand. I also think we need to focus much more on disabled staff, where there is a perception, in the evidence we are getting, of a sense of discrimination against disabled people."