The RAF 'made mistakes over its diversity and inclusion policy'
By Dominic Nicholls
Having spent his entire adult life in the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, the outgoing head of the service, could be forgiven for looking back to highlight past successes.
Far from it. Instead, Sir Mike was quick to warn of the danger of trying to spot one’s legacy “as you walk out the door”.
In conversation with The Telegraph ahead of his retirement next month, it was to the future of the RAF that he looked - even if he will not be in post to reap the rewards.
But he was also willing to reflect on the clouds that have blotted the sky during his tenure.
On his watch, the RAF went into a flat spin over the
diversity and inclusion agenda.
He admitted mistakes were made over the recruitment and selection of personnel from under-represented groups.
“We were doing all we could to tackle this intractable problem, which is the lack of diversity in our service,” he said.
Of the 1,500 pilots in the RAF at the end of last year, only 30 were women and around 10 were from ethnic minorities.
Less than two per cent of the 8,500 engineers were from ethnic minorities and six per cent were women.
Only three per cent of the RAF as a whole came from an ethnic minority. Efforts to improve these figures and meet Chief of the Air Staff’s stated aim of having 40 per cent women and 20 per cent of personnel from ethnic minorities by 2030 were “flatlining”.
Mistakes resulted in the resignation of the senior officer responsible for recruiting and selection - something Sir Mike described as
a “regrettable” outcome.
“One of the mistakes we made was that those aspirational goals filtered down into people's personal objectives in-year which they found almost impossible to meet,” he said.
“That put intolerable pressure on them and I've apologised to the recruiting and selection organisation.”
These episodes and
the media criticism they drew were “tough for me personally”, he said, although he denied ever finding himself at a low ebb.
“You feel that responsibility because you're leading the organisation, it's natural, but no different to anyone else wearing the uniform,” he said.
“The resilience that comes from being a relentless optimist carries you a long way when you're in this position.”