It pays to be in the equality and diversity game

The other day, the Tory MP Philip Davies put a question to the Home Office asking it how much it,

spent (a) in total and (b) on staff costs on activities to promote equality and diversity in each of the last three years for which figures are available; and how many people her Department employs for that purpose.

Now, it's not the yearly figure as such which bothers me, although it is, of course, seven figures and will bother some, but rather the percentage of it that covers staff costs and the number of staff, which happens to be 20.

2007-08: £1,725,000, of which £837,000 were staff costs.

2008-09: £1,683,000, of which £1,071,000 were staff costs.

2009-10: £1,518,000, of which £1,026,000 were staff costs

So we have 48.5% of the spending on staff in the first year which then jumps to 64% in the second and finally, in the last year, 67.5% of the spending on equality and diversity by the Home Office goes on paying 20 people to carry out the work.

Makes you wonder whether the work is (a) worth it, or (b) the people doing the work have been given continual payrises for doing less and less.

After all, in the first year, on the assumption that they're all paid the same (which obviously they won't be), they'd all be on £41,850 per annum, and by the third they'd be on £51,300 per annum.

Wish I could see approximate rises of above 20% in salary over three years for seemingly doing less. Only in Government could a budget decrease whilst salary cost for those spending the budget increases by an order of magnitude.

Everyone's equal but some people are more equal than others huh?