UK charities hiring staff with ‘privilege not potential’, report author warns | Charities
Charities are hiring staff with “privilege rather than potential”, according to the author of a report highlighting the stark class divide in the sector. Working-class people are less likely to be hired by charities than by employers in the public and private sectors, said the EY Foundation, which supports young people from low-income backgrounds to progress in professional roles. Working-class people also find it harder to climb the career ladder inside charitable organisations, with the report highlighting how charity chief executives are twice as likely as the wider population to have gone to private school, rising to three times as likely for the biggest charities. Duncan Exley, the author of the report, said charities were missing out when teams hired within their own social circles and class bubbles, which the research showed tended to skew towards the most affluent third of people. He said: “You’re cutting off an awful lot of talent, you’re going to recruit people who have privilege rather than people who are potential.” One issue identified was that most charities were not …