Earlier this week, Labour leadership candidate Diane Abbott is quoted as saying public sector cuts have the "potential to set back race relations and black and ethnic minority communities by a generation." Specifically, she warned that a "last in, first out" approach to redundancies would hit black and female workers particularly hard, presumably given the nature of positive action in recent years. Aside from the "doom and gloom" feel to her statement, I broadly agree; accurate, objective and transparent assessment regardless of time in post is essential to ensuring fair and unbiased selection decisions.

The sad irony is that cutbacks are just as likely to affect HR budgets as they will headcount and money available for objective assessment will be first to go.

So, where does this leave us?

Employee's perceptions of fairness at the current time will be particularly important. As companies look to reduce headcount, the process by which decisions are made over an individual's future with the organisation will have a significant impact on the subsequent performance of such individuals.

It is critical that organisations employ objective, valid, fair, inclusive and most importantly transparent selection procedures when looking at who is to stay and who, unfortunately, is to go.

Whether the approach is based on appraisal data, competency-based interviewing, assessment centres, or the like, organisations are morally obliged to ensure the process is objective, robust, based on justifiable criteria, inclusive of all groups, and above all cost effective.

Clearly, it is this last point that will resonate with most organisations feeling the pinch of recent governmental cuts. The knee-jerk reaction will be to cut all selection processes and go with a "last in, first out" approach. Unfortunately, by using such an approach, there is a significant risk of injecting bias associated with ill-defined criteria, inconsistent assessment processes and subjective interpretation of performance.

By extension, the apparent cost-saving of "streamlined" assessment is far outweighed by the longer term costs of unfair selection.

As my mum used to say, "do it right, or don't do it at all".