The head of the RAF said there was “no drop in performance standards”, after the organization’s head of recruitment described the diversity policy as “illegal”.
Sky News reported last month that a team captain refuse to obey orders that prioritize women and ethnic minority candidates.
She told her boss in an email that she was not willing to allocate positions for RAF training courses purely based on gender or specific ethnicity.
Air Force Chief of Police Sir Mike Wigston told Sky News on Tuesday there was “absolutely no drop in operational standards, no standards at all”.
“There is no discrimination against any group, no standards abandoned, no discrimination against any group,” he said.
“None of the approaches to recruitment or any of the measures we have taken to recruit from the broadest pool of talent in the UK workforce, in any way lower standards of performance. our operations and services.”
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RAF head rejects diversity claims
He added: “We’ve been very clear about our position. We’ll continue to check our practices, we’ll do everything we can to recruit from the broadest pool of talent.
“We will be very clear about how we approach any effort to expand that talent pool, expand our diversity, and we will continue to protect the nation, we will protect our skies and patrol the seas.”
The MOD has stated it aims to increase the percentage of female recruits joining the Armed Forces as a whole from around 12% to 30% by 2030.
The RAF is aiming to go further. It is looking to have the proportion of female recruits in the Air Force reach 40% by the end of the decade – more than double the current level.
The goal for ethnic minorities is to reach 20% of all air force recruits in the same time frame, up from about 10%.
