Exclusive: National Trust forcing volunteers to undergo diversity training on return after lockdown

The National Trust is forcing volunteers to undergo diversity training as they return after lockdown, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Trust, which has faced increasing criticism from members over its political stance, requires everyone to undergo the training, including rangers who are not working directly with members of the public.

One former volunteer said that they had resigned along with several of their colleagues, in part because of the training which they had been asked to complete as part of their return from lockdown which they saw as part of the Trust’s current “agenda”.

The “everyday inclusion” training, which is run online alongside other mandatory courses including fire safety, data protection and safeguarding, aims to help volunteers “raise awareness” of their “unintended biases”.

A Trust spokesman said on Monday night that it has been policy for several years that all staff and volunteers undertake the training, and volunteers who have not yet completed it may have been reminded of their obligations as part of the return to work.

The only training required before volunteers can start work again is on coronavirus safety measures, they added.

The diversity training, parts of which have been seen by The Telegraph, includes questions that must be retaken if the participant fails.

The former volunteer said: “One is left to wonder how many potential volunteers will be put off by this policy, [and how many] existing volunteers who will call it a day rather than subject themselves to examinations.”

Another has questioned the Trust’s priorities as it offers the training at the same time as making hundreds of staff redundant.

The revelations about the training requirements are the latest in a string of criticism of the Trust for what members have described as its “woke” agenda.

One of the most controversial decision was the publication of a report linking its properties to colonialism and slavery, which included references to Winston Churchill’s home.

The training includes a section labelled “Unconscious bias: Self awareness” where participants are asked to look at images, including one used by psychologists which has been interpreted as both a duck and a rabbit, and identify what they see.

They are told that it is “almost impossible to avoid unconscious bias when making initial judgements about people. Greater awareness of our own biases can help us review our behaviours”.

Participants are then asked to answer a series of questions, many based on cartoons with multiple-choice responses.

In one statement given after an incorrect answer, the online module tells participants that a job applicant felt she “must leave her true identity at the door to appeal” meaning “she will never be able to bring her whole self to work”.

In another question a cartoon shows three people of different heights all standing on the same size boxes to watch a baseball game over the fence, meaning the shortest cannot see, which is labelled “equality”.

Alongside it sits a cartoon of the same three people standing on different sized boxes so that they are all the same height, labelled equity.

Participants are asked to select all the statements which apply, including whether treating “everyone the same ensures equality of opportunity and equality of access for everyone” or whether “everyone requires different types of support. We must recognise this in order to be inclusive.”

The former volunteer questioned why all staff have to complete the training even in roles where it is “irrelevant”.

The effectiveness of diversity training has been questioned in recent months, and unconscious bias training has been banned across Whitehall after a Government review found little evidence that it works.

A spokesman for the Trust said it was “the same kind of training offered by thousands of other organisations across the country”, adding: “Training on diversity and inclusion issues is important for anyone that will have contact with staff, volunteers, visitors or supporters.”

He said that there were a number of training modules that are mandatory but staff and volunteers have a period of time in which they complete them.