RAF personnel chief 'unashamed' of 'pausing job offers for white men' to employ more women and ethnic minorities

The RAF's top personnel officer has confirmed she did ask her recruitment team to "stop filling up the training courses" with new recruits temporarily after diversity targets were not being hit.

The admission by Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford came after Sky News reported on Tuesday that the head of RAF recruitment had resigned in protest at what defence sources described as an "effective pause" on making job offers to white men in favour of women and ethnic minorities.

An RAF spokesperson at the time denied that there had been any pause in recruitment.

Speaking to The Times, Air Vice-Marshal Byford - one of the most senior female officers in the air force - said she was "unashamed" of a policy that could mean women and ethnic minorities are in effect being prioritised for roles over white men.

The Chief of Staff Personnel - who is the boss of the female Group Captain who quit in apparent protest at what the recruitment team was being asked to do - said in the interview she had "slowed" down the recruitment process for all candidates ahead of a meeting of the RAF board next month.

The board would consider ways to use "positive action" legally so recruits could potentially be selected on merit, their gender or ethnicity if they passed the basic requirements to join the service, Air Vice-Marshal Byford said.

Candidates are at present put forward for training as soon as they meet the requirements in a "first past the post" system, rather than based on how well they did at certain stages of the selection process. "And if I can include more women and more people from different backgrounds in that, I think I have a better service in the long run. We are unashamed about doing that because I think that's a good thing," the senior officer was quoted as saying.

She said the RAF had been "just shy" of meeting its diversity targets for recruitment this year of 25% women and 12% ethnic minorities, falling short by 5 percentage points and 4-5 percentage points respectively.

So she then asked her recruitment team, based at RAF Cranwell, a sprawling base in Lincolnshire where the head of recruitment role is located, to "stop filling up the training courses" until early September when the talks will take place, according to further extracts of the interview by The Times's Larisa Brown, posted on Twitter.

Air Vice-Marshal Byford said the board would "not necessarily" choose to prioritise women and minorities over white men.

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She also disputed allegations by defence sources to Sky News that the RAF's operational requirements could be affected by the diversity drive.

"I would never do anything that impacted on that," she said. "Our role is to protect and defend the nation."

The RAF aims to grow the ratio of women recruits to 40% by 2040 and to lift the inflow of ethnic minorities to 20% - far more ambitious goals than the army and the Royal Navy.