Recently the Local Government Association (LGA) sent out an Inclusive Language Guide to its members with the aim of “embedding equality, equity, diversity and inclusion” across the workplace. The document contains 12 principles including “respecting people from marginalised and minoritised backgrounds”.
It says:
“ ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen’ should be avoided in favour of ‘Good afternoon, everyone’. People who are not ‘ladies’ or ‘gentlemen’ may recognise the difference, feel included and that they belong.”
The Sun reported:
“A new edict bans councils from using terms such as mum and dad — with “birthing parent” preferred. Other phrases to be avoided include second generation, expat, economic migrant, deprived neighbourhoods, the homeless, and lifestyle choice. Referring to disabled or able bodied staff is also an office offence. The ruling came in an email from Mark Lloyd CBE, chief exec.”
Initially, the LGA defended the document. But it has since been withdrawn. That was welcome. Though it does leave one wondering how many other woke excesses are continuing in its Smith Square headquarters below the radar.
The LGA has an income of £53 million a year. That includes subscription payments from 331 councils in England (that’s nearly all of them, though Bromley withdraw many years ago and has managed to get by without them.) The subscriptions come to £10.2 million. So that’s an average of £31,000 each – though the subs vary significantly with a small district paying less than a large unitary authority. But it also is sent another £33.5 million from central Government. It all pays for the 400 staff to issue lots of missives, conduct plenty of research, hold lots of conference, provide abundant training courses. One can take a guess as to how beneficial it will all be. Simon Clarke, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary, must consider whether in good conscience he should continue handing them over £33.5 million of our money each year.
I have long been sceptical of the LGA and I included cancelling membership subscriptions to it in a list of 200 suggestions to local authorities on ways to make savings.
Even if the LGA banished jargon and became a champion of plain English, the fundamental problem would remain. It is a lobby group. The voice of “the sector”. The LGA operates like a trade union defending its members. It will never criticise a local authority – no matter how appalling.
Thus whenever grants are allocated to councils from central government the LGA will declare that it isn’t enough. That councils have “already been cut to the bone.” That all efficiency savings have already been found and that essential services will inevitably be axed as there is no alternatve available. That will be the mantra from Mark Lloyd, it chief executive on his £215,000 annual salary – when he isn’t busy issuing and withdrawing Inclusive Language Guides.
No doubt some will find the message convincing. LGA spokesmen seldom find they face much challenging questioning during interviews when they take to the airwaves. But some of us may wonder if the LGA’s very existence represents in physical embodiment, a repudiation of the case it is so vigorous in making.