Meghan Markle need of hour for British Royals, working on ‘diversity & inclusivity’, says new Grant report

The British Royal Family recently released the annual Sovereign Grant report, which made two things very clear. First, the royal family failed to meet its diversity target of 14% of its workforce coming from ethnic minorities, and second, they needed Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, back in the Palace.

The Sovereign Grant report stated that one of the British Palace's key objectives was to “continue to develop a diverse team of well-led, trained, motivated and adaptable professionals.”

The Grant report details a “focus” on “ensuring that the Royal Household is a modern, inclusive, purpose and values-led organisation.” The report said that over the last year, the royal family has been conducting “surveys, focus groups, leadership development and all-staff training sessions” to achieve the target of getting a diverse team for the Palace.

The Sovereign Grant report sounds like an annual report of an accounting firm busy doing its “best” for women and herding the female staffers into a conference on International Women’s Day, suggesting they speak up more.

Though the Grant report suggests that the British royals are working very actively to encourage “diversity” and “inclusivity”, their most high-profile recruit of colour, Meghan Markle, found the royal palace so inhospitable that she broke the relations with the family after less than two years.

The royal family has a serious problem on the diversity front and their efforts on this, as the Grant report states, and the problem hardly seems to resolve any time soon.

King Charles III wants a diverse, motivated, adaptable, energetic, and enthusiastic line-up, as well as a willingness to try new things. All these adjectives better describe Meghan. His daughter-in-law has transformed herself from decorative game show ornament to blogger, philanthropist, TV producer, podcaster, children’s book author, and soon-to-be entrepreneur with her American Riviera Orchard lifestyle brand.

It is important to note that the British Royal Family has only one member who is a person of colour, and she found the Palace so unappealing that she returned back to the United States. Meghan even charged an unnamed member of the royal family who had “concerns” about their unborn baby’s skin colour. Some media reports suggested King Charles and Kate as the so-called “royal racists” who had “concerns and conversations” about the Sussexes’ first baby’s skin colour.

In late 2022, Prince Harry and Meghan made a startling revelation that there is a “huge level of unconscious bias” in the royal family. Prince Harry said that when Meghan was facing a media deluge, he was told that it was a “rite of passage.” Harry said what they failed to grasp was “the race element.”

The Grant report admits that the palace is still failing to meet its diversity target of 14% of its workforce coming from ethnic minorities. (Though it is up on last year’s 9.7%.) The percentage of senior palace staff from ethnic minorities has fallen over the last year (from 12.2 to 11.4%), and there is an ethnic minority pay gap of 3.9%.