This week's opinion: 15 October 2020

I have been reflecting on the diversity supplement we published last week – if you have not read it I urge you to do so.

Ten, perhaps even five, years ago there was a tendency to pay lip service to diversity. It seemed to me that many organisations put together policies because they thought that it was the correct thing to do, not because they really believed that diversity mattered. 

I remember sitting through some fairly excruciating presentations where well-meaning, middle-aged, white men did their best to sound engaged but it was all too obvious that they had no real sense of empathy with the subject. That may sound harsh but, in all honesty, if I had been presenting I am pretty sure that I would have come across in exactly the same way. 

Things are very different now. The diversity agenda is being embraced, not just because of its obvious social good, but because businesses know that if they fail to embed diversity within their culture they will no longer be able to recruit the best staff or work for the best clients. I hear more and more about cases when an advisory firm that does not take diversity seriously will not even get through the door to make a pitch. 

There is a long way to go, but we are in a better place than we were a few years ago. The tax profession has some eloquent diversity champions. Long may their voices continue to be heard. I want to be part of a profession which attracts the very best people: diversity has an important part to play in achieving this.