Top Brass failing to promote black and Asian female officers to senior ranks

DEFENCE chiefs are failing to promote black and Asian female officers to senior ranks, figures show.

Top brass have revealed 120 women are serving at the level of colonel or above across all the Armed Forces — but not a single one of them comes from a minority group.

The promotion of black or Asian male officers is almost as bad, with 1,560 male senior officers ranked colonel or above, but fewer than five from a diverse background.

And no black or Asian officers were promoted to senior ranks between 2016 and the end of 2020.

Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin pledged action last year after describing the Armed Forces’ failure to reflect the country’s ethnic mix as “woeful”.

Black, Asian and minority personnel accounted for 9.2 per cent of service staff — some 13,680 — as of April 2021. That figure had risen just 0.4 per cent in the previous 12 months.

Shadow minister Luke Pollard said: “For Britain’s Armed Forces to stay the best in the world, we need the MoD to recruit, retain and promote talent from across all communities.

"The way we stand up to Russia is to have the best soldiers, the best strategists, the best pilots and the best sailors.

“That means promoting the best people regardless of their background.”

Tory MP James Gray yesterday insisted “great strides” had been made by the military to recruit from a diverse range of backgrounds.

But he added: “Clearly, more needs to be done in senior ranks. To attract the best talent from across the country with people from all backgrounds, maybe the military needs to look again at where it is recruiting.”

An MoD spokesman said: “The Armed Forces continues to work hard to broaden the diversity of our workforce.”