Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Nanny is a hypocritical old so and so at times.

She is oh so very fond of telling us what to do, and how to live our lives, yet she does not always follow her own rules.

One fine example of this hypocrisy, can be seen in the work of Nanny's chums on the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

The EOC is very fond of lecturing companies about equality in the workplace, and about ensuring that they report on their sexual and racial mix.

Yet, surprise surprise, the EOC does not actually follow its own advice.

The EOC annual report for 2004/5, for reasons that are unclear, does not report on its own sexual/racial mix.

This lapse is even more odd, as it was quite happy to report on this in the previous year.

Maybe the reason that it doesn't like to draw attention to the mix, is that fact that the 2003 report showed a remarkably "unbalanced" and unequal organisation.

It seems that in 2003 only 16% of the EOC were made up of men.

That doesn't look very good for an organ that is supposed to promote equality, does it?

The EOC describes itself as "the leading agency set up to tackle sex discrimination" and that "it is committed to challenging discrimination in all its forms and at all levels of society".

When asked about this lapse in reporting this year, the EOC haughtily said that the figures are in the public domain.

In other words, they don't want to draw attention to their own failings.

The failure to publish these figures in its annual report has of course put the EOC in breach of the Race Relations Act, and the Sex Discrimination Act.

I do hope that no one reports them!