On 08 December 2020 we launched the Diversity Mentoring Scheme. This scheme, which PCF is working on with Cabinet Office and the Public Appointment Commissioner’s team, forms part of the Cabinet Office’s Diversity Action Plan from 2019.

The diversity mentor scheme aims to ensure public appointees, and the boards of the public bodies on which they sit, are truly representative of the society they serve. The scheme has the active backing of Julia Lopez MP, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office currently with responsibility for public appointments. The event brought together for the first time the mentors and the mentees.

The mentees are raring to go. Not only is there excitement about being able to link up with a chair and board of an arm’s length body, but the mentees are looking forward to learning from each other as a cohort.

The mentees have all applied for public appointment positions in the past. The government departments to which they applied identified each mentee as someone close to being appointable, as well as being from a group currently under-represented in public appointments.

It was clear in the (online) room at our event that there is a lot of synergy between this cohort of mentees. Already there is talk about Linkedin groups, Whatsapp groups and follow up events.

This was all before they had the chance to meet with their mentors in the virtual breakout rooms.

The mentors are equally enthusiastic about the opportunities this scheme will provide for them as individuals and the organisations that they chair.

There is no doubt that this scheme is as much an opportunity for chairs to reflect on their arm’s length bodies, bring in a different perspective that the mentee can provide and so help improve the performance of both mentor and mentee.

The mentors, drawn from the PCF membership, are all Chairs (or Deputy Chairs) of arm’s length bodies coming from a wide range of Government departments.

Last week we conducted an interview with Lucy Armstrong, Chair of the Port of Tyne, asking her what she hopes to achieve from the scheme. We have also just published a blog from Robert Swannell CBE, Chairman of UK Government Investments, where he outlines why he wants to be a mentor.

Over the next few months we aim to provide you with some more reflections from our mentors and mentees as the scheme progresses.

To find out more about the diversity mentor scheme please secretariat@publicchairsforum.org.uk