Local Government: Training

(asked on 8th June 2021) - View Source

Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether her Department has made an assessment of the effect of participation in training sessions based on Critical Race Theory on local authority employees.


Answered by
Kemi Badenoch Portrait
Kemi Badenoch
President of the Board of Trade
This question was answered on 14th June 2021

In the Written Ministerial Statement of 15 December 2020, HCWS652, the Government outlined how unconscious bias training fails to deliver value for taxpayers' money and is ineffective. We indicated that it will be phased out in the Civil Service, and encourage the wider public sector to do the same.

Similar principles can be applied to "critical race theory" training, which is a controversial political ideology. Councils should be seeking to keep council tax down, and focus resources to supporting frontline services and covid recovery.

Moreover, the application of critical race theory to municipal public services threatens to undermine integration and community cohesion, by exaggerating differences within local communities; instead, councils should be seeking to build and strengthen a shared local and national identity across class, colour and creed.

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