Nigel Farage’s ‘£7 Billion DEI Savings’ Don’t Actually Exist

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Nigel Farage’s party faces embarrassment today as new figures appear to discredit Reform UK’s claims about ‘wasteful’ public sector spending on diversity schemes.

Farage’s party has repeatedly claimed that it could save £7 billion a year by scrapping Government spending on ‘DEI’ programmes – representing diversity, equality and inclusion schemes designed to reduce discrimination and create more welcoming, representative workplaces. 

But new Government figures – which have yet to be refuted by the far-right party – show that just £27 million was actually spent on so-called DEI measures in 2022-23 by the civil service – suggesting leader Nigel Farage’s claims are off by a factor of about 250. 

The civil service spend amounts to less than a penny a week per person living in Britain. 

A spokesman for Reform UK told the Times today that the £7 billion figure was from a review of total public sector spending by the right-wing Conservative Way Forward group, ‘which included councils, school boards, universities and government grants to charities among other areas.’ Universities are largely funded through tuition fees, not the Government. 

But it is hard to see how anywhere near Reform’s £7bn figure could be met even taking into account wider Government spending. 

Over 500,000 people work for the civil service in the UK. Wider public sector employment is about 12 times larger, at just over six million people, according to the Office for National Statistics. Yet the £27m civil service EDI spending is just 0.4% of Reform UK’s claimed total public sector DEI spend per year.  ‘DEI’ as a term is a direct import by Reform UK from the US: in the UK it is typically referred to as EDI.

And the new official review of equality spending by Government departments and so-called quangos shows there are 380 ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ staff working full-time in the civil service – out of more than half a million people.

Civil service union FDA’s Assistant General Secretary Lucille Thirlby told this newspaper: that across an organisation of more than 500,000 staff, “these couple of hundred EDI staff represent a small cost of the overall salary bill.”

“Scaling back EDI staff would likely leave departments exposed to challenges around discrimination – be that individual cases or structural issues like equal pay and failure to apply reasonable adjustments – eroding any potential cost savings while making the civil service a much worse place to work.”

And the Institute for Government’s senior researcher Jack Worlidge added that EDI initiatives are a “common feature of many workplaces, including the civil service.”

“The [new] figures show that savings from scrapping such initiatives would not be significant in the context of overall government spending. Between July 2022 and 2023, the equivalent of ~0.07% of the civil service workforce was devoted to EDI initiatives, costing…about 0.1% of the civil service pay bill.”

The UK Government spends around £1.2 trillion a year in total, on services from the NHS to schools and roads – thousands of times more than spent on civil service DEI schemes. 

The Conservative-party backing CWF’s central mission is to lobby for “less government, [a] smaller state and lower taxes” with Margaret Thatcher as its founding president.

Their report’s £7bn total – dubbed “Defunding Politically Motivated Campaigns” – includes grants to charities providing advice for migrants, and, bizarrely, Government funding for independent bodies such as the NHS Confederation and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, which CWF appears to dislike but has little to do with diversity and inclusion. It also includes arts and universities funding described as “woke”. 

Also criticised – and making up a large chunk of the £7bn figure – is funding for the Environment Agency, which protects Britain against flooding, for investing in climate change adaptation and prevention schemes, as well as other nature projects from Natural England and the National Lottery Community Fund. 

Funding for the Office for Students is also included in the total, in opposition to the regulator’s spending on access and participation plans, which seek to improve university recruitment from people from disadvantaged backgrounds – including working-class students. University admissions were previously reserved for a small elite but participation has widened significantly in recent decades. 

Other media outlets, including the BBC, have repeatedly quoted Reform UK’s £7bn claim without appearing to scrutinise its accuracy. Byline Times has asked the party for full costings and a breakdown on what they claim it is spent on and where.

Much of it may be spent on workplace adjustments for disabled employees, or encouraging a wider pool of talent to apply for civil service roles.  

As Naomi Smith, Chief Executive of Best for Britain, which campaigns for closer EU-UK ties, told Byline Times: “Many of these so-called ‘Whitehall wokery’ roles are about ensuring fairness for often marginalised and under-represented groups, including protecting older people from age-related discrimination in the workplace.

Scrapping equalities staff across government could hit older people. “When it comes to EDI, they may need to be careful what they wish for,” Smith added.

Byline Times readers have also been responding to the claims. On Bluesky, commentator Warren Oates noted the figure was also just “0.0023% of government spending that year…It’s just a rounding error in the country’s spending and stopping it would have literally no overall impact on available money.” 

Andy Blatchford added: “[It’s] deeply annoying that the interview[er] on 5 Live Drive [this week] quoted this ridiculous [£7bn a year] amount. My immediate thought [was] well there’s an easy take down for the presenter.” The presenter did not challenge Reform’s spokesperson. 

And Nick Stone said £27 million was a “nothing burger” in the grand scheme of Government spending. “The planning paperwork currently stands at £32 million for the restoration of the railway line and building of Portishead railway station in the West of England.”

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Reader Simon James noted: “This is loose change to people like Reform’s treasurer, Nick Candy. Perhaps it might be an idea to tax him more instead.”

Others though noted that Reform UK is following the Trumpian playbook. “Farage is making it up as he goes along. Even if he did his research and knew the accurate figure, he’d rather repeat the lie to enrage people,” said one. 

Reform UK has increasingly talked up claims of public sector spending on diversity, equality and inclusion, saying it would scrap all spending on such projects. 

But the new Reform mayor for Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, was shown up this month after vowing to sack the county council’s diversity officers – before it emerged there aren’t any. 

Reform UK has been contacted for comment, but a spokesperson told the Times: “Under a Reform government, DEI spending in the civil service and across public sector bodies will drop to zero…DEI agendas are divisive and inconsistent with British values.” 

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