Civil servants receive training in avoiding ‘unconscious bias’

Staff across Government departments are receiving “unconscious bias” training, to help them avoid making decisions based on gender, class, race, or other stereotypes.

In the last two years senior managers in most departments have received training in how to recognise and avoid any prior biases and prejudices they may have. The cost of providing the training across several departments came to over €35,000.

The Department of Finance spent approximately €20,000 on bias training for 223 staff, over the last two years. The Department of Foreign Affairs spent €3,900 on the training last year, and €1,450 so far this year.

The majority of departments ran small workshops on the topic, for a number of senior staff, which in most cases cost €800. The Department of Health, Department of Transport, and Department of Children have not run any bias training for staff in the last two years.

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A spokesman for the Department of Finance said the training helped staff address prejudices they may have, and look at how they could minimise their effect and make “better and fairer” decisions.

Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin TD, who chairs the Oireachtas women's caucus, said it was a positive step that civil servants were receiving the training.

“However training must be particularly focused on management and for those involved in recruitment,” she said. Citing figures from 2017 she said men were twice as likely to hold senior positions in the civil service, despite women making up two thirds of the workforce.

Box ticking

“Unconscious bias training must be regularly implemented and assessed. Sporadic training without analysis may be perceived to be little more than a box ticking exercise,” Ms Martin said.

Last November a woman was awarded €7,500 by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which found she had been discriminated against in a job interview, by comments made by Minister for State for training, skills and innovation John Halligan.

The Independent Alliance junior minister asked the female official if she was married and if she had children in the interview, which was for a position as private secretary to a minister of state in the Department of Business.

The female candidate was not successful, and Mr Halligan said he regretted the comments following the WRC ruling.

The department has spent €800 on bias training since 2017, and a spokeswoman said “Minister Halligan did not attend any of the departments unconscious bias training workshops/events”.

In April global coffee chain Starbucks found itself at the centre of a racial scandal in the US, when an employee called the police on two black men who had sat down in a coffee shop in Philadelphia without ordering anything.

After a video of the two men being arrested went viral on social media, Starbucks chief executive Kevin Johnson said the coffee multinational would provide racial bias training to all US staff, which took place in late May.