“As I argue in Poverty Trapped bias can ruin life chances if it stops the best candidates from being hired or promoted on merit at work. It doesn’t matter if the bias is accidental or deliberate; employers lose the top talent either way, and the best candidates miss opportunities unfairly too.
But many popular techniques like ‘unconscious bias training’ have track records that are spotty at best, so we need a new approach: a new British Standard that distils the most effective, practical techniques to guarantee consistently merit-based hiring and promotion decisions, so every employer gets the best person for every job, every time.
Fortunately, Ministers agree there’s a problem and have promised to engage with the British Standards Institute to see what can be done. If it works, we will turn Britain into a fairer and more legitimate society: a genuine meritocracy where everyone’s successes will have been fairly earned and properly deserved.”
MC2022-07981_John-Penrose-MP_Response