Diversity and inclusion policies triggered a "mass exodus" of employees from a Whitehall watchdog, a former employee has told GB News.
The National Audit Office (NAO) is responsible for the oversight of public spending across Government departments and agencies, including the BBC and the NHS.
The murder of George Floyd in 2020 sparked a global wave of DEI policies in the workplace, leading to employers hiring according to race, gender, sexuality and religion in a bid to have a more "inclusive" workforce, including at the NAO.
However, the introduction of the new policies whipped up resentment and anger from employees while their seniors hired "diversity box-tickers" who were at odds with their new jobs, a whistleblower has told The People's Channel.
The whistleblower, who wished to remain anonymous due to mistrust of the NAO, worked at the institution when the DEI policies were introduced.
"It just sort of went into complete overdrive," the employee admitted. "And they had such a huge overreaction to this, and they seemed very captured and obsessed. I was astonished.
"It was quite a bizarre thing to witness and see and hear about and experience."
The insider source also said it was "insulting" to the diversity hires, claiming they knew they were "just there to bump up their quotas and make them look inclusive".
The National Audit Office has offices in Newcastle and London
|The whistleblower recounted that a diversity hire was brought into their team, where he subsequently found difficulty with the auditing job.
"He couldn't understand audit, the world of audit, at all, and he couldn't do the work," the former employee explained, adding that his workload ended up being shared out between the team.
"He was getting paid a full salary but not doing all of the work that he was meant to do, so it did create a lot of sort of frustration and resentment among the workforce."
The insider source did not blame the hire but the NAO for allowing a hire to "struggle from day one".
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|"As time went on, there seemed to be quite a lot of announcements made of staff who were leaving, and a senior director, who'd been there for years, made a comment saying that he had never known a high turnover."
"He said it seemed like quite a high exodus of staff leaving, and he'd never known anything like it."
However, when the issue was raised in a company meeting, a senior director allegedly responded with anger and aggression, saying that he "held no truck with anyone who is of that opinion".
"It was very clear that he was shutting down that view, and he didn't want to talk about it," the former employee said.
The NAO bills its diversity and inclusion strategy as "seeing people as unique individuals and embracing all identities and perspectives".
It first introduced its policies in a bid to be an "exemplar organisation" for DEI and "one that others look to learn from".
As part of the initiative, seniors seek to boost diversity at senior levels for "under-represented groups" and measure progress against a "clear set of metrics" by their executive leadership team.
An NAO spokesman told GB News: "We do not recognise this account.
"The details of our Diversity and Inclusion strategy are available on our website."