Why is the civil service being given lessons on ‘microaggressions’?

Civil servants are being given lessons instructing them not to roll their eyes or look at their mobile phones while dealing with members of staff. Such behaviour can be deemed evidence of sexual or racial discrimination, examples of ‘microaggressions’.

As the Times reports today, more than £160,000 has been spent by the government since 2021 on hiring public sector consultants to train staff to recognise ‘perceived slights’ in the form of microaggressions. Complaints of microaggressions are even being brought to employment tribunals after Acas, the arbitration service, decided to include them in its guidance against discrimination. Elsewhere, in the same time period, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has spent more than £1,000 per worker on microaggression training for a small number of staff. 

A microggression, an idea derived from the school of Critical Race Theory, is the concept that someone might innocently or unconsciously display a dismissive or hostile attitude through unwittingly made minor gestures.