Why the hell have they got a load of bollox about equality & diversity monitoring?!

What does it matter what my sexuality/race/religion is? Why do they need to know that?

Will I stand more chance of getting the job through positive discrimination if I say I am a gay muslim of mixed black & asian ethnicity?

They do not take these into account through the hiring procedure, they use it to monitor their workforce not to actually influence their decision (or that is the theory anyway) – I work for the NHS btw.

can have strange results if you tick boxes "for fun". I ticked the other box for race (might have been non stated, I can't remember what the options are) and got invited to an equality conference in London with a night in a nice hotel etc (n the event i couldn't go, but that might have been fun!) I also got invited to join the LGBT group from the local hospital and an invitiation to a pre pride party. Though I think thats just people making assumptions!

It's a legal requirement that is imposed on us by Government. The people actually doing the selecting/ interviewing do not get to see the details it is purely for monitoring by HR and passing up to DH. We have them on our internal booking forms for some daft reason, which I choose not to fill in as I couldn't care less what colour/ age/ sex etc someone is.

I notice google's put a gay dating add up -> 🙂

I was looking at NHS project manager and IT roles a bit back. What really pissed me off about the whole process was that all the ads stated that previous experience of the NHS was essential! Now if that's not discriminatory.

+1 Coyote

Also how a lot of government jobs require security 'clearance', and you can only get it if someone sponsors you – but they won't as its expensive, so they only take already cleared applicants.

But they are the ones who make it expensive!