Name blind recruitment to address discrimination

10 November 2015

The government has announced that organisations from across the public and private sector, together responsible for employing 1.8 million people in the UK, have pledged to operate recruitment on ‘name blind’ basis to address discrimination.

Under the new agreement, names will not be visible on graduate recruitment applications, reducing the potential for discrimination. Leading graduate employers from across the public and private sector have committed to the new scheme.

David Cameron hosted a roundtable to discuss encouraging organisations to recruit on a ‘name blind’ basis to address discrimination. The Prime Minister said:

“I said in my conference speech that I want us to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality in our country today. Today we are delivering on that commitment and extending opportunity to all. If you’ve got the grades, the skills and the determination this government will ensure that you can succeed.”

The announcement follows the Prime Minister’s speech to Conservative Party Conference, where he cited research showing that people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get job call-backs than people with ethnic-sounding names.

The Civil Service is committing to introducing name-blind recruitment for all roles below Senior Civil Service (SCS) level. Other top graduate recruiters like KPMG, HSBC, Deloitte, Virgin Money, BBC, NHS, learndirect and local government are joining organisations like Teach First by committing to deliver name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) will be promoting the benefits of name-blind recruitment and will be working towards embedding this as standard through its training and development courses. This means the approach is likely to spread more widely throughout the private sector.