At the same time I feel, as with all these schemes, that any negative comment on them will be shot down in flames.

I work for the NHS in an acute London hospital which is currently working very hard to redeploy a large number of people whose jobs are at risk because of the national NHS budget deficit. The workforce affected is diverse and covers a large number of ethnic groups, not forgetting white, British staff.

I appreciate the New Deal programme is separate from the NHS. But I, and many others like me, fail to see the logic, value or sense in spending the equivalent of just under half of the NHS deficit on promoting diversity, when that money would be much better spent on helping the NHS retain those workers who are just about to lose their jobs.

No doubt people will respond with talk about a ‘different budget’ or will say they ‘can’t transfer one lot of funding to another’. I just despair at the way this government gets its priorities so wrong.