Woke diversity drive? UK's Royal Air Force admits skewed hiring in favour of women, ethnic minorities 

UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) has admitted that it made "mistakes" following allegations that it had prioritised the hiring of ethnic minorities and female candidates over white men in a bid to achieve "impossible" diversity targets.

The claims came to light last month after Sky News leaked an email from an officer of RAF's recruitment department, expressing concern over the skewed hiring process.

The unnamed officer reportedly told her superior officer that she was not willing to allocate slots on training courses based purely on a specific gender or ethnicity.

The officer later resigned after she refused to follow the recruitment process, saying that the fighting strength of the RAF would be weakened by meeting “impossible” diversity targets, reports Sky News.

Earlier this month, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston defended the recruitment process, saying“there was absolutely no drop in operational standards, no drop in any standards. There was no discrimination against any group, no standards were dropped, there was no discrimination against any group.”

However, a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson issued a statement on Tuesday acknowledging the "mistakes".
"The RAF is constantly reviewing its recruiting practices, including the introduction earlier this year of a new recruiting IT system, to improve the diversity of its workforce," the spokesperson said."While overall standards did not drop, in hindsight we accept that despite the best of intentions, some mistakes were made."

The MoD statement said that overall recruitment remains a top priority for the RAF, and not just for women and ethnic minorities.

It further said that it remained determined to maintain high standards while recruiting in fair and non-discriminatory ways.

"The RAF is now confident that our approach is correct, however, we are investigating some processes and decisions taken in the past, so it would be inappropriate to comment further while this is ongoing."

(With inputs from agencies)

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