King's College London

Self-reported bullying and discrimination in the Civil Service dropped by roughly a third in 2020 when hybrid working became widespread, and has remained at lower levels since – but troubling disparities persist for certain groups, according to new analysis from the School for Government at King's College London.

The research analysed data from the Civil Service People Survey spanning over a decade. It reveals that while overall workplace culture has improved, ethnic minority civil servants are more likely to report experiencing bullying than their white colleagues, and LGBTQA staff face substantially higher rates of both bullying and discrimination.

"There is good news: the improvements in inclusion and reduction in those suffering bullying and discrimination are positive trends," said Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB, former Permanent Secretary at DEFRA, in a foreword to the report. "However, there remains persistent gaps for certain groups particularly ethnic minorities and LGBTQA people. The fact that the gap is not closing is a significant cause for concern."

The study's most striking finding is the sudden drop in reported bullying and discrimination coinciding with the pandemic and subsequent shift to hybrid working. Researchers hypothesise that bullying and discriminatory behaviour may partially occur outside formal meetings and emails – in other in-person interactions or through exclusion from social events – meaning hybrid working reduced opportunities for such conduct.

However, certain groups continue to experience significantly worse workplace experiences. In the most recent data, ethnic minority civil servants reported a 2 percentage point gap – or 25% difference – in bullying rates compared to white staff. Trans women face particularly acute challenges, experiencing bullying at roughly three times the rate of cisgender colleagues.

The research also found:

• People with long-term health conditions are more than twice as likely to experience bullying and discrimination, though this group saw particularly steep declines after 2020, suggesting they may disproportionately benefit from hybrid working.
• Gender gaps in bullying emerged relatively recently, starting around 2016, with female civil servants now reporting higher rates than male colleagues.
• LGBTQA civil servants experience higher rates of sexual harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation.
• Inclusion scores have gradually risen for most groups, though gaps between ethnic minority and white civil servants have actually widened since 2018.

The Civil Service People Survey achieves remarkably high response rates for a staff survey of its scale, with 354,962 civil servants (61% of the workforce) completing it in 2024, making it a uniquely valuable dataset for understanding workplace culture in a major employer.

Professor Michael Sanders, Director of the School for Government at King's, said:

“We have written in previous reports about the fall in wellbeing in the 2020 survey, which has also persisted over time. In this original analysis, the effect of the pandemic, and of the remote working which followed it, is cast as a negative, but these new findings suggest there may have been an upside for people who would otherwise have been bullied or discriminated against, who are in some way protected, perhaps by the nature of remote work.

“How this has been achieved – and persisted – warrants considerable additional attention. Although the ratios of discrimination and bullying have remained the same – so that marginalised groups are still much more likely to experience discrimination and bullying – this means that the absolute benefit of these changes has been felt by those who were most likely to be bullied in the first place.”