Buckingham Palace has admitted that it has to start employing a more diverse workforce after the number BAME (Black & Minority Ethnic) employees working in the House was published for the first time.
In its annual financial accounts for 2020-2021 the Royal Household revealed its proportion of employees from ethnically diverse backgrounds stands at being 8.5% - short of its 10% target for 2022. According to a 2018 Race Disparity Audit commissioned by the UK government the percentage in the UK as a whole is around 14%.
A source said that the Palace published the figures so that they would be held accountable if no progress is made on the issue. This comes after the accusations made on the Oprah Winfrey Show, by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, of racism existing in the Royal Family.
Palace sources did, however, stress that changes in the Household towards diversity predated the allegations made by Meghan and Harry, but admitted that it (the Palace) needed to do more on diversity.
"We are not where we would like to be despite our efforts," the source said. "And we recognise that we must do more, we are engaging with the relevant grassroots organisations who sit on our steering committee, people who are able to give us a different voice, a different perspective, as well as other advisers.
"We felt that there is no place to hide following voluntarily publishing the statistics. We fully expect to be held accountable for the progress that we made and if we do not make the progress, we'll have to explain why." The Royal finance report says in early 2020 the diversity strategy was actively changed to emphasise the importance of inclusion.
During the Oprah Winfrey interview, the Sussexes claimed that questions were raised concerns with Harry about how dark their son Archie's skin tone might be before he was born. Following the interview, the Queen issued a statement saying that the issues raised especially around racism were being taken seriously but that some recollections may vary.
