Intel expansion

MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in effort to recruit black and Asian officers

MI6 is to return to the old-school method of “tapping up” recruits as part of a concerted effort to draw in a new cadre of black and Asian officers and finally dispel the image of British spies as the preserve of a posh, Oxbridge elite.

The initiative has come directly from the agency’s chief, Alex Younger, who told the Guardian that MI6, known officially as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), needed to reach out to communities that were “selecting themselves out” of a potential career in the world of secret intelligence gathering.