24
Women in the UK Intelligence Community
“If the Agencies
are serious about
increasing the
diversity of their
organisations then
there are other, wellstocked [recruitment]
pools to fish in.”
extent from MI5, suggested that recruitment was too focused on
graduates and educational qualifications at the expense of middleaged applicants with more life experience, such as women restarting
their careers after a number of years raising children.
Maternity-related issues, childcare and
flexible working
30. From talking to staff it is clear that maternity-related provision has
been an area that in the past received relatively little attention from
the Agencies and, as a consequence, the loyalty and morale of those
women who took time away from work to have children suffered.
A lot of progress has been made in recent years – there have been
a number of reviews and initiatives that have been instigated by the
Agencies in an attempt to overcome some of these issues, and the
situation is much better than it was. From talking to staff it was clear
that those with more recent experience of maternity-related issues are
more satisfied than their predecessors.
“I am due to start a second period of maternity leave shortly. I’ve
already noticed a number of improvements. In particular: there is now
a dedicated team handling maternity leave in HR which should make
maintaining contact a bit easier; all vacancies are now advertised,
and women are now encouraged to apply for a role on return, which
will hopefully give me a bit more control over my career; and those
on maternity leave are now able to retain their office passes and
access to IT, which should make coming into the office to apply for
jobs more straightforward.”
Working mother at MI5
31. However, it was still an area where we heard a number of criticisms.
These included:
• not having sufficient information before taking maternity
leave and feeling isolated when on maternity leave (in one
Agency, an individual who got so frustrated with the lack of
information created a wiki page with a checklist for others in
the same situation);
• on returning to work, there is an assumption that new
mothers would take up business support functions, such as
Human Resources (HR) or administration, rather than continue
in operational roles; and
• no support when returning to work: having to make all the
arrangements themselves through their own networks of
friends and colleagues.
We have examined each of these areas.
32. Keeping in touch. Continuous engagement before and during
maternity leave is vital. All the Agencies operate a ‘Keeping in Touch’