Buckingham Palace says 8.4% of its staff are from ethnic minority backgrounds amid push for more diversity

• The Royal Household said 8.5% of its staff are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
• It aims to increase this figure to 10% by the year 2022.
• A palace source told Insider they expect to be held accountable for their future progress.

The Royal Household said 8.5% of its staff were from ethnic minority backgrounds during the financial year 2020-21.

A Buckingham Palace source said the household is committed to improving this figure, which was released as part of the royal family's annual financial report on Thursday.

"Her Majesty and the Royal Family have promoted and embraced the diversity of our nation and that of the Commonwealth, and we recognize that our own workforce needs to reflect the communities we serve," a palace source told Insider.

"We recognize we are not where we would like to be and that despite all our efforts to target recruitment, train managers and build an inclusive workplace, the results have not been what we would like," they added. "But we are committed to improving this, hence we have started to publish diversity statistics to ensure we are open and transparent about our efforts to improve. We fully expect to be held accountable regarding our progress."

The palace aims to increase this figure to 10% of staff from ethnic minorities by the year 2022.

The Mail on Sunday reported in March that the palace planned to hire a "diversity tsar" following claims of racism from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

The couple said during their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March that there had been racist discussions about their son Archie's skin tone within the royal family, but wouldn't name which members of the family were involved.

The royal household plans to "seek independent views" on being more inclusive to ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ+ communities, the Mail on Sunday report stated.

"Colored immigrants or foreigners" were banned from holding office jobs at Buckingham Palace until at least the 1960s, according to documents obtained by The Guardian in June.

The documents, discovered at the National Archives, showed the Queen has been exempt from race and gender equality laws since they were introduced in the UK in the 1970s.

However, a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told Insider at the time that the household complies with the provisions of the Equality Act, which protects people from discrimination in the workplace and wider society.