I'm putting myself out on a limb but it needs to be said & I can say it as I'm out of gov atm. I also civil servants & know they can do better.

I've had five PoC working in different gov departments separately contact me who have been expected to work on addressing racism. 1/

This is on top of their existing work or have been given v little time to work on this. They are totally understandably at the end of their tether & burnt out (emotionally & physically)

Firstly, this is not their area of expertise, they should not be expected to work on this. 2/

Secondly, this is not a problem they need to sort out. Racism is not PoC's issue, it is white people's problem. There are plenty of anti-racism experts one can pay to help white people out if you don't know where to start. There are also plenty of free resources & books. 3/

Thirdly, they are being expected to explain what racism is, share their own experiences of racism & listen to other's racism experiences. This is traumatizing, utterly draining, takes a huge emotional & physical toll on victims of racism & puts them in a vulnerable position. 4/

Fourthly, there is no or very little senior leadership support. Whilst there's BAME networks providing some support, senior leaders are not. This is not on. It makes PoC feel like the unfair treatment they are facing at work & outside is not being believed (aka gaslighted) 5/

Fifthly, PoC have had a significantly harder time with Covid (4 x more Covid deaths in Black community; 2 x more deaths in Bangladeshi community) AND they are having to deal with day-to-day racism. It is wrong to expect them to take this burden of working on racism too. 6/

And this is why I am going to say this again: As an employer & senior leaders, you have a responsibility to bring in paid experts to work on racism. If not, you are not safeguarding your employees and are putting them at risk of racist bullying, discrimination and harassment. 7/

I don't want to hear excuses of we don't have funding to bring in external anti-racism consultants. The excuse is not good enough for gov departments. We are not talking about spending millions, it's a few thousands. If the PM can find ~1M to paint a plane, there is money. 8/

I am also very disappointed that some departments and digital teams who proudly work with Agile principles & values, are not tackling racism in a sensible way. Agile Principle #5 states: "Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done." 9/

And finally, if your department/workplace is tackling racism in a sensible and mature way, please please share how you are doing it. We need these case studies in the public domain.

We can tackle racism head on, we have to do this, and if anyone can do it, civil servants can