‘Unconscious bias training’: Conor Murphy’s department blocks public from knowing how much it spent on programme for civil servants

The Department of Finance is refusing to say how much public money has been spent on “unconscious bias training” for civil servants.
Conor MurphyConor Murphy
Conor Murphy

The department, headed by Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy, is likewise refusing to say who provided the training, or the content of it.

The figure – whatever it is – could be significant, since the department did disclose that roughly 12,500 civil servants have been on such a course in the last five years.

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The department did reveal that the training began in late 2016 (months after it passed from long-term DUP control to Sinn Fein hands).

It was made compulsory for all staff from Executive Officer II grade upwards, but everyone else was encouraged to do it too.

Such bias training has been much in the news recently.

For example Donald Trump banned any training which depicts a single group of people as being “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive” – effectively prohibiting training providers from singling out men or light-skinned people for special blame.

It followed such things as a viral video circulating online showing a black American woman delivering an “anti-bias” lecture to a largely-white audience, telling them: “All white people are racist. You’re always going to be racist actually... I believe white people are born into not being human” (though there is no suggestion any civil service training is remotely as extreme as that).

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MPs at Westminster were invited to take such training too, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter campaign.

The course reportedly advised MPs to allow themselves to be “mentored” by young, junior-level black people.

And in September, the News Letter revealed that TransgenderNI had been given over £1,000 to provide mandatory “training” to PSNI officers – despite director Alexa Moore having a history of violently anti-police comments.

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Among the things the “training” claimed was that 1% of the population is transgender.

If that were true, there would be roughly four-to-six times as many transgender people in NI than there are Chinese people.

The Department of Finance blocked access to the details about its training on the grounds it has the “potential to prejudice commercial interests” of the group which is delivering it (despite it being pointed out the PSNI had happily supplied the same information).

The News Letter is appealing the decision to the Information Commissioner.

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