Civil Service's 'racial bias' attacked

The chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality said the higher levels of the Civil Service were known as the "snowy peaks".

"I want to see the Civil Service start looking like the country it runs," he said.

"Of course we've got lots of ethnic minority civil servants but virtually all of them are in the lower grades.

"We coined the phrase 'Snowy Peaks' for the Civil Service because when you get above grade 5 they're virtually all white. This is a disgrace. It's not modern - the Civil Service isn't keeping pace with the country it reckons it runs." Suma Chakrabati, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development, is the only member of an ethnic minority in such a senior post in Whitehall.

Mr Phillips said: "There is a sense in Government that race just means trouble ... so the best thing to do is pretend it doesn't exist, lock it in a box and forget about it. The problem is in the real world you can't forget it."