RAF recruitment chief quits amid row over ‘effective pause on hiring white men’
The head of the Royal Air Force’s recruiting team has resigned amid claims the service has effectively paused recruitment of white men to hit diversity targets.
The Group Captain, whose identity has not been revealed, has left the post but is still a serving RAF officer, the Ministry of Defence confirmed.
The report by Sky News claimed an effective pause on recruiting white men had been ordered to meet diversity targets.
However, an RAF spokesman said: “There is no pause in Royal Air Force recruitment and no new policy with regards to meeting in-year recruitment requirements.
“Royal Air Force commanders will not shy away from the challenges we face building a service that attracts and recruits talent from every part of the UK workforce.
“As with the Royal Navy and British Army, we are doing everything we can to encourage recruiting from under-represented groups and ensure we have a diverse workforce.
“The Royal Air Force has a well-earned reputation for operational excellence that is founded on the quality of all our people. We will always seek to recruit the best talent available to us.”
‘The woefulness of too few women’
The report comes after Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, the head of the RAF, insisted on “profound” change in the recruitment of personnel.
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) has committed his service to doubling, to 40 per cent, recruitment of women by 2030 and 20 per cent from ethnic minorities.
The RAF has said it will use “targeted interventions” within a legal framework of “positive action” to effect change.
This means that where candidates for internal appointments are judged to be of equal talent and ability, preference will be given to women and minorities.
In his first speech as Head of the Armed Forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin made it clear he expected service chiefs to make diversity a priority.
Diversity was not about “wokefulness”, he said in December 2021.
“It is about woefulness. The woefulness of too few women. The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation.”
A defence source told The Telegraph: “Half the UK will support CAS’s position on transparency, zero tolerance for discrimination and openness from a gender perspective.
“Half will not.”
A spokesperson for Rishi Sunak's campaign said: "The only thing that should matter in recruitment is the content of your character, not your sex or the colour of your skin.
"That the Ministry of Defence would allow Britain's security to potentially be put at risk by a drive for so-called 'diversity' is not only disgraceful, it is dangerous."
