
Westminster council offers staff chance to take ‘privilege' quiz
Westminster Council workers are asked to take an online quiz which gives a privilege score based on answers to statements like 'I am a white male' or 'I have an illness or disability', according to the Daily Telegraph.
The council said the questions appeared on a Powerpoint presentation from 2021 and do not form ' any part of formal policy, training or recruitment process.'
Answering yes to 'I am a white male' would score +15 points, while answering yes to 'I am a carer' would score -5 points on a scale of least privileged to most privileged, according to the newspaper.
The quiz also asks staff to answer yes or no to statements like 'My parents or guardians read to me when I was a child' (+5 points) and 'I have never been stopped and searched by the police' (+10 points), it was reported.
Other statements read: 'I do most of my food shopping at Waitrose or Marks and Spencer'(+5 points), 'I think twice about calling the police when trouble occurs' (-5 points) and 'I live in rented accommodation' (-5).
Answering yes to 'I drive a new car' would score a staff member +5 points, while answering yes to 'I have to take annual leave for my religious holidays' would result in a score of -5 points.
Last month, Westminster Council proposed alcohol-free 'quiet nights' in Soho as part of a plan to transform the famous district.
It encouraged Soho bars and pubs to cater for neurodiverse people through 'sensory-friendly' nights with reduced noise, dimmed lighting and calm zones.
Cllr Geoff Barraclough said the plan was intended to 'balance the needs of a thriving evening and night-time offer with the wellbeing of the residents who call Westminster their home.'
A Westminster Council spokesperson said:" Westminster City Council 's recruitment policies are industry standard, entirely consistent with UK employment law and have been in place for a number of years.
'In keeping with many public sector and private companies, we are committed to ensuring all candidates can compete for a range of roles and we actively promote ourselves as an inclusive employer.
'This PowerPoint presentation, which we believe was available on the council's staff intranet from 2021, does not form any part of our formal policy, training or recruitment process.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

South Wales Argus
18 minutes ago
- South Wales Argus
Monmouthshire council home care review to be discussed
Carers and those they support to remain in their own homes hit out at changes to contracts earlier this year which will see some providers in the south of Monmouthshire change. Due to anger at the changes the council's combined opposition , at a meetng picketed by carers and supporters including clients, forced a review of the contract process and how decisions were made. County councillors will consider a report giving an overview of the process, and lessons already learnt, at a special scrutiny meeting on Wednesday, July 9. The Labour-led council said it retendered domiciliary care contracts as part of a revamp of how care at home is provided and to try better manage costs as well as provide common employment terms for care workers. It divided the south of the county into three areas; Chepstow town and rural, Caldicot town and The Levels and rural with firms awarded one area each as it wanted to move away from buying care packages on an ad-hoc basis. Magor-based Lougher Home Care, which had operated across the area, was awarded the The Levels and rural area which meant it would no longer operate in Caldicot and Chepstow and clients would be allocated new providers. Under the contracts staff are able to transfer with existing terms and conditions protected but many working for Lougher said they didn't want to join either Radis Community Care, that holds the Chepstow contracts, or Care Quality Services that will operate in Calidicot and would likely look for alternative employment outside of care. The council's Conservative opposition also said the changes had resulted in a locally based firm losing contracts to national firms and questioned if the council's procurement process disadvantaged small businesses. No formal challenges to the contract decisions were made under the procurement process by any of the 13 bidders. The council's performance and overview scrutiny committee will consider the report by social services' commissioning manager, Ceri York, at the special meeting. Her report states when contracts were awarded 161 people were written to advising them of a change to their existing provider and 35, or 22 per cent, have since asked about direct payments which allow people to employ the carer of their choice. It also identified ways the procurement process, which was run in partnership with Ardal the body that buys services and products for Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan councils, could be simplified and run to 'more realistic timescales'. Increased engagement with people using the service could be built into the timeline, the report has suggested, so they would have a say in how the contract process is decided, and it also identified there has been a negative impact on them. It has said earlier engagement with existing providers during the second phase of the process 'may improve cooperation and reduce anxiety'. The report states: 'A robust procurement process has been carried out overseen by Ardal Procurement to ensure that all contract and procurement legislation has been adhered to.' Contracts were awarded in March but service providers aren't due to change until August 19. In line with the full council's decision a review of the council's procurement process in general still has to be carried out.


Daily Mirror
28 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Car types to be banned by 2030 as UK motorists face huge changes
The ban will mean the vast majority of manufacturers will not be able to sell certain types of vehicles in less than five years Certain types of car are set to be phased out from UK streets within less than five years. The Government has announced that nearly all new solely combustion petrol and diesel cars will be off the market by 2030 and beyond. This means most leading car makers won't be able to sell any form of petrol and diesel vehicle as we shift towards hybrid and electric engines. But the 2030 ban doesn't stop there as even new fossil fuel mild hybrids are in the firing line. The Conservatives had delayed the petrol and diesel motor ban to 2035, but Labour pledged in their manifesto to revert to the original 2030 deadline. Experts at the Electric Car Scheme said: "For drivers, the 2030 deadline means that anyone looking to buy a new conventional petrol or diesel car will need to do so before that date. "However, hybrids will remain an option until 2035, providing a transitional option for those not yet ready to go fully electric." Which? reports that "new pure fossil fuel cars" and "new fossil fuel mild hybrids" are the only vehicles which will be completely banned from 2030. The Government has made some concessions, with plug-in hybrids getting a reprieve until 2035, reports the Express. At the same time, smaller car manufacturers making fewer than 1,000 vehicles a year now have a get-out clause from the stringent Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate targets. The move grants additional leeway for leading British car manufacturers like Caterham, Aston Martin, and McLaren to continue production of combustion engine models for now. This year, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed the strategy, saying it was an important part of a plan to avoid fossil-fuel dependency. She said: "Our plans will restore clarity for manufacturers, provide renewed confidence for charging infrastructure investors and give confidence to consumers considering making the switch. No new petrol or diesel cars will be sold after 2030. All new cars and vans will need to be 100% zero emission by 2035. "The need to transition away from a reliance on fossil fuels has never been clearer, and the transition to zero-emission vehicles will play a critical role in quickly reducing carbon emissions and improving our energy security." Full list of vehicle types banned after 2030


Daily Mail
30 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Panic over Labour 'wealth tax' to fill £30bn black hole in government finances - with warning millionaires have ALREADY moved huge amounts of cash out of UK
has been warned that a wealth tax would make her situation even worse as Labour 's Left demands more spending. The prospect of a charge on the assets of the well-off has been mooted as the Chancellor scrambles to fill a potential £30billion black hole in the public finances. Lord Kinnock, who led Labour between 1983 and 1992, fueled speculation yesterday by suggesting ministers were looking at a two per cent levy on assets worth more than £10million. He said the move could raise up to £11billion a year and be popular with a 'great majority of the general public'. Left-wingers and unions have lined up behind the idea, as they knock back tentative efforts to curb spiralling benefits costs. However, the Tories warned that there was already an alarming exodus of wealth-creators from Britain thanks to Labour's policies - saying the only people who would suffer from the raid would be the least well-off. Tories warned that there was already an alarming exodus of wealth-creators from Britain thanks to Labour's policies - saying the only people who would suffer from the raid would be the least well-off. Ms Reeves seems to be backed into a corner as she is adamant about sticking to her strict fiscal rules on borrowing. She has also said Labour will keep the manifesto pledge not to hike taxes on income tax, employee national insurance or VAT. But experts have suggested that the stalling economy together with spending pressures could mean she has a £31billion funding gap to fill at the Autumn Budget. The respected IFS has warned the tax increases might even need to be on a similar scale to the record £41billion hike in the burden imposed last year. Speaking to Sky News yesterday, Lord Kinnock said there was now an appearance the Government was being 'bogged down by their own imposed limitations'. But he added there are 'ways around that', such as the introduction of a wealth tax when Ms Reeves presents her next Budget in the Autumn. 'There are ways around that, ways out of it, pathways that I think people are willing to explore and actually, would commend themselves to the great majority of the general public,' the peer said. 'They include, for instance, asset taxes in a period in which - for the last 20-odd years in the UK, like quite a lot of other Western economies - earned incomes have stagnated in real terms while asset values have zoomed. 'They've just gone through the roof.' He added: 'You wouldn't have to touch assets of under £6million or £7million. So people's houses would be secure obviously. 'But even by going for an imposition of 2 per cent on asset values above £10million, say, which is very big fortune, the Government would be in a position to collect £10billion or £11 billion a year. But Tory shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride condemned a tax on assets over £10million as 'the worst thing to do'. He said Labour's tax hikes had already seen around 10,000 to 15,000 high net worth individuals leave Britain. 'Some people, the socialists, might say 'well, who cares about that?', he added. 'Well, the problem is that the amount of tax that those people have been paying requires about a third of a million people on average earnings to cover that lost tax that's just gone straight out of the door. 'So the last thing we want to be doing now is piling further taxes on the wealth creators. 'We need to be, if anything, getting those taxes down, and empowering them to go out and do what they do best, which is creating jobs, and, you know, creating wealth and prosperity for our country.'