Who is to blame for the DEI lawsuits? Finally, we have some answers! Here is the second slice of our three-part interview with Neil Morrison, group HR director at the British water company Severn Trent.

With reference to high profile cases including Lloyds Banking Group, Thames Valley Police, the Open University and Cambridgeshire County Council, we ask:

- Why don’t DEI and HR professionals understand the Equality Act 2010 – and do they even need to? (Neil suggests not - find out why...)

- How did an external training session result in an employment tribunal costing Lloyds Banking Group £1m – and what questions remain about what went wrong?

- What is impairing people's judgement? Are professionals acting on their own politics – or is there a fear that their brand won't be seen as tough enough on racism, sexism, transphobia, etc?

- Are there too many DEI ‘grifters’? How did an explosion in demand from employers for equalities training open the door to DEI trainers with questionable credentials, and iffy advice?

- Did anybody read the government’s Inclusion at Work report, published in the spring? Was the low level of interest really down to the ‘Kemi Badenoch’ factor? (Spoiler: Yes!)

- Are employers taking notice of the rising number of employees who are winning DEI-related cases at employment tribunal?

- Have staff networks suffered from mission creep, and is it right that they are now directly feeding in to company policy?

- Is it time for the smartest HR directors to take charge, and return to a more thoughtful, 'common sense' approach to managing problems around DEI issues?

- These lawsuits are expensive, stressful and - crucially - avoidable. Don't we all want to reduce the risk of them happening? 

Enjoy the episode! 

PS. Look out for the next episode... where we'll ask Neil how heads of DEI have got away with behaving like activists, and whether the UK's DEI industry is about to shrink dramatically... 

*Watch/listen on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts*

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