1st October 2024
bbc.co.uk/accessall
Access All – episode 127
Presented by Emma Tracey
EMMA- Hello,
this is Access All and I’m Emma Tracey. And this is a very, very exciting
episode. It’s very different to what we usually bring you. We’ve been keeping a
lot of secrets in Access All over the last few weeks because recently I got the
opportunity to visit the MI5 headquarters and I spoke to one of their senior
intelligence officers. We’re calling him Liam, and that’s not his real name,
and Liam’s autistic. And he tells us about the realities of working with the
security services when you’re neurodivergent. So, you’ll hear that interview
with Liam, and then I will speak to the BBC’s security correspondent, Gordon Corera,
about MI5.
Now,
before we get on to the chat with Liam let me tell you how this interview came
about. Arranging it took about nine months and involved conversations about
what could be broadcast, which would provide insight into the intelligence
agency without putting national security at risk. I met with Liam who was put
forward by MI5, and it was agreed that Liam’s words would be voiced by an
actor. So, the voice that you will hear is that of Matthew McCloud. Right, here
we go, here’s that chat with Liam.
MUSIC- Theme
music.
EMMA- Liam,
you are so, so welcome to Access All.
LIAM- Thank
you very much. It’s really great to be here and thank you so much for your interest
in this topic.
EMMA- I
am so interested and I am so excited, I’m honestly just trying to keep it at
bay to make myself look a bit more professional. Did you always want to work at
MI5?
LIAM- I
thought of a range of things when I was growing up. I was very interested in
being in the military, but I really felt kind of drawn to this work.
EMMA- Now,
I know you can’t tell me exactly what you do in MI5, but what skills do you
bring to it? I mean, in a kind of vague way even can you tell me what kinds of
skills you have and what you studied?
LIAM- I
was recruited in as what’s called a generalist. What I have is the ability to
acquire and use various different analytical skills in a variety of roles. So,
sometimes I worked in our investigative kind of more mission focused roles, other
times I’ve worked in our more kind of policy and internal security and project
roles.
EMMA- And
are there disabled people and neurodivergent people in all of the areas, like
the officers who the agents and the people who have to go out into the
fields, would you say that there’s representation in all of those areas?
LIAM- Yes,
I’ve done it.
EMMA- Oh,
I mean, what can I ask you? Was it really fun? What was the main thing that
being neurodivergent helped you with going out to the field to agents?
LIAM- That
hyper focus and attention to detail was certainly I think a strength in that
environment. I’ve also got a fairly good memory, which I think was also quite
helpful in that environment too, because obviously when you’re out and about
you don’t have the access to a lot of our materials that we have in the office,
so being able to I found quite useful.
EMMA- Liam,
I think when you say you have a fairly good memory I think you mean you have a
very, very good memory?
LIAM- You
know, it’s not as good as it was when I was young. At one point I was almost
photographic with my memory, but that has ed now I’m afraid.
EMMA- You’ve
been there for many years. You’ve done really, really well, you’ve progressed
quite a lot. You weren’t diagnosed until much later in your career. But often
disabled people worry that they go into an organisation, even somewhere like
the BBC or any big organisation, and that they won’t be able to move forward.
Have you seen neurodivergent and disabled people progress up the ladder?
LIAM- Just
so we’re really clear, I actually became a senior manager in MI5 after I had
been diagnosed as autistic. So, from my own experience my biggest significant
career developments have happened after I worked out I was neurodiverse.
EMMA- Can
we talk about your diagnosis journey while working at MI5, is that okay? How
did you start thinking about maybe I’m neurodiverse, and particularly in relation
to work?
LIAM- It
really kind of cumulated in, I guess, a tipping point, or a breaking point
really is probably a more accurate description. I was starting to really
struggle really absorbing so much information that was being thrown at me. And
then one day – excuse me, it’s quite challenging to talk about.
EMMA- Of
course.
LIAM- [Clears
throat] one day I was sat at my desk and I was chairing a meeting, my phone was
going off, I had loads of messages, I had loads of papers and there was so much
I guess I had a kind of sensory overload. I was really tired and I started to
have a terrible headache that then turned into quite a bad migraine. I sort of
stopped doing what I was doing and decided it would be a good idea to splash
some water all over my face. So, I got up and then as I started making my way
to the bathroom I started losing the ability to see; the migraine was affecting
my vision. So, I had to stop and then fortunately some very kind colleagues
came and rescued me and looked after me. But it had a really quite significant
impact on me and I was off work for some time because I subsequently discovered
that what that was was an autistic burnout.
EMMA- Yeah.
So, after you were off work with autistic burnout, so you had just come to your
limit and it had culminated in physical health issues, what happened next?
LIAM- I
knew that something awful had happened and it had made me feel really rubbish,
so I got a lot of through our occupational health teams here and the
wellbeing teams. And through them they organised counselling for me with people
through the organisation so I could talk freely with them. And that was
incredibly helpful because it was through that process where we explored a
range of things, whether it was stress, anxiety interlinked, which it probably
was interlinked to the autistic element of it and the neurodiversity. But from
there through the office I was organised to see some neurodiverse coaches,
which further then helped me understand the fact that I was neurodiverse. But
it was a really challenging perspective. I mean, it was kind of interesting
because I had actually got a child that was autistic, and I hadn’t seen the
connection, even though we are quite similar in those ways.
EMMA- So,
your child had been diagnosed before all this?
LIAM- Correct,
yes.
EMMA- Right.
That’s really interesting.
LIAM- Really
interesting. But the honest truth is that when I was off work, and I struggled
being off work because I couldn’t really do much and I was so tired, but what
was on my mind was whether or not I’d be capable of coming back, and if I could
come back how would I be viewed. I guess my strength had always been my
reliability, and I was really worried coming back would people see me as the
reliable person anymore; was I even that reliable person anymore.
EMMA- And
are you? Was it okay?
LIAM- That’s
a complicated question and the short answer is yes, it was more than okay. And
that was because when I started to come back into work we actually had a staff
network group for neurodiverse individuals, as well as the through
wellbeing and the coaching to the neurodiversity coaches. And my engagement
with them was hugely important because it started to show me that there were
lots of neurodiverse individuals within the organisation, and that actually in
order to be able to function what I needed to do was kind of build around
myself a proper ing scaffolding structure to allow me to work in a
slightly different way, but to do so in a way that was healthy for me.
EMMA- And
what was the different way that you had to work?
LIAM- I
realised through my neurodiversity that I often take things quite literally.
So, if someone says something like, we need this done straightaway, or this or
we need this done now, I would go and do that work straightaway and I would
keep working till it was done.
EMMA- Yeah.
LIAM- Whereas
now to ask a question, okay: so, if we say this is a priority for us is this
something that we need to be done by the end of today or is it by the end of
the week, or is it in a month’s time. I also work on one thing at a time. In an
effort to be efficient I would be listening in to a meeting, and at the same
time I would be reading emails, and at the same time I’d also be thinking about
what I would want to write in a report that I was writing. I would be doing
multiple things at once; whereas now I try to not do that.
EMMA- And
your work in MI5 does your brain working differently do you see that as an
asset? Is it a really good thing for the job that you do? Is it a really good
thing for autistic and neurodivergent people in the organisation?
LIAM- When
I first ed the office someone explained to me intelligence work is like a
jigsaw puzzle, and the different ways we collect intelligence allows us to get
the different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Getting the jigsaw puzzle right can
mean the difference between helping save people’s lives and protecting national
security. So, this is why I think neurodiversity is really important because it
allows us to have a range of different people that could all have different
experiences and ways of viewing the world so that we can see different images
being formed in that jigsaw picture.
EMMA- And
why have you decided to speak about neurodivergence and working for MI5? How
are you hoping it will help? Or are you doing it for yourself? What’s going on?
LIAM- In
full honesty I was initially quite reluctant to do this. It’s not something
I’ve ever done before and it’s not something I ever thought I would do. Whilst
my natural reluctance was there it was overweighed by the fact that the
benefits that I thought this could bring in talking about how important and how
valued neurodiverse people are at MI5 kind of outweighed my natural reluctance
for public speaking.
EMMA- So,
what can you tell me about other colleagues’ experiences in MI5 then?
LIAM- So,
we’ve got a range of people with different neurodiversities. So, we’ve got some
people that are on the ADHD side, some autistic, some highly sensitive. So,
there is a real range of people and they all bring their own strengths to it.
And there’s people that work in a whole range of different roles at MI5 I’ve
had the fortune to speak to and encounter; they’re all bringing their own
unique perspectives and strengths to that range of different areas.
EMMA- I
know a lot of autistic people and neurodivergent people who really struggle to
keep secrets and they struggle at keeping anything to themselves, but you must
not be one of those people. I mean, what did you tell family and friends?
You’ve been there for a long time, you’re obviously very, very good at that
now. But was it a struggle or it is your superpower?
LIAM- [Laughs]
I don’t know whether it’s my superpower, I often keep and take in a lot of
information. The keeping of secrets has never been an issue for me. I mean, I
did speak to my mother and father about it and my wife knows, and that’s about
the extent of it.
EMMA- I
have to ask this, Liam: is working for MI5 as glamorous as it looks on the
telly or in novels? Do you get to go to these amazing locations? Do you have
this amazing tech? Is it as cool and as glamorous as they make it look?
LIAM- Okay
so [laughs] I have done things, fortunate things in working for MI5 that I
would never have got to do anywhere else in the world. I have travelled
overseas; I have done mission work that I think has had a real positive impact
and saved people’s lives essentially.
EMMA- Liam,
when you work at MI5 can you have a normal life outside of it? Do you get calls
at odd hours? How do you deal with family and friends?
LIAM- You
know, yes, depending on the role. I’ve been ed outside the office and
had to deal with that, other times I haven’t. But I have a family and social
life and it hasn’t impeded me in doing that.
EMMA- And
because you have to be so secretive about the work you do with the people you know
is there quite a friendly internal culture?
LIAM- Yes.
I really love the office. I have been here for a long time. I am lucky to work
with amazing, talented, kind people. We have a network group and our executive
committee held a neurodiversity week.
EMMA- What
do you organise?
LIAM- A
series of talks, people talking about their experiences, if they were
neurodiverse. There was also space to talk about issues such as if you have
neurodiverse children, and we had guest speakers.
EMMA- Okay,
so if you have guest speakers how do you organise that? I mean, what do you
tell them? Are they internal people? And if you have social events – this is
what I really want to know – is there a special pub?
LIAM- You’re
asking me if there is an MI5 pub.
EMMA- Is
there an MI5 pub?
LIAM- I
can neither confirm nor deny whether there is an MI5 pub.
EMMA- [Laughs]
MUSIC-
EMMA- That
was Liam, a senior intelligence officer at MI5, who’s autistic and told us
about his experience of working for the agency. Now ing me is the BBC’s
security correspondent Gordon Corera. Hi Gordon.
GORDON- Hello,
nice to be with you.
EMMA- Oh,
it’s nice to have you in. It’s nice to have an expert on board, honestly.
GORDON- [Laughs]
supposedly.
EMMA- Yeah,
so that was really, really interesting talking about Liam’s experiences working
in MI5. But can I go back to basics, there are three agencies, aren’t there? What
are they and what do they do?
GORDON- That’s
a good question and lots of people get a bit confused about them. There are
three intelligence agencies or three big ones in the UK I should say: MI5, the
one we’ve just heard about, which is the domestic security service. So, that
does things like investigate terrorist threats in the UK, or foreign spies who
are operating inside the UK. Then there’s MI6, as it's popularly known, it’s
also called SIS, the Security Intelligence Service. That operates overseas
recruiting agents who are going to provide intelligence, say, about Iran’s
nuclear programme, or what’s going on inside Russia, or things in China. And then
there’s GCHQ based out in Cheltenham, which grew up as the, if you like,
collecting communications data, intercepting communications, whether it was
radio or now the internet. So, you associate it with the kind of digital and
cyberworld and communication specifically, again, mainly around the world
rather than the UK. So, those are the three intelligence agencies.
EMMA- Okay,
so UK, worldwide and the geeky one.
GORDON- [Laughs]
that’s how some people put it.
EMMA- Cybersecurity
one.
GORDON- They’re
all getting more geeky though, which is one of the interesting things about it,
because I think they all need to know a bit more tech than there used to be.
So, some of the old stereotypes have gone, but I think some are still there
about the differences between them.
EMMA- That’s
interesting because maybe them becoming more sort of computer, internet heavy
in how they do things might reflect the types of people that they bring in. I
mean, you’ve been around all three agencies for some years now, Gordon, what
have you noticed or seen around the numbers of disabled people? Obviously every
disability isn’t visible, but the numbers in each of the agencies, or has
anything jumped out at you?
GORDON- Having
been around the agencies certainly visibly when you walk round them GCHQ would
present as having more people with a disability that you can see. I think
that’s been the case for many years. It partly goes back to its roots, some of
its traditions and the sense in which it’s looking for people often who have
neurodiversity.
EMMA- Alan
Turing was we think now autistic, don’t we?
GORDON- Yes,
and certainly fits in that category as we now would understand it. And I think
that is a reflection that sometimes those ways of seeing the world were
particularly in GCHQ. Other forms of diversity perhaps in some of the agencies,
in MI5 I would say always looked more diverse in of ethnic background for
instance, and has had more women in senior positions, but less has been said or
known about the issues of disability there. Which is why I think what you’ve
done is very interesting to try and explore that, because there’s not something
that there’s much about that I’ve seen in the past.
EMMA- MI5
comes across as really glamorous when you watch it on the TV or you read the
books, the novels, the many, many novels. But are the agencies still bound by
the same employment law and the same stuff around reasonable adjustments and
around access to work, so making sure you’ve got all your tech and that kind of
thing?
GORDON- Absolutely.
They are UK employers. They’re part, if you like, of the civil service,
particularly in MI5. MI6 and GCHQ come under the Foreign Office, but those same
obligations exist there. And there have been intelligence and security
committee reports, so those are the kind of oversight body reports. And there
was a few years ago and it did say that neurodivergent and disabled staff
working for MI5 had some problems accessing their software to enable them to do
their jobs. That’s the kind of thing though which MI5 would then have looked at
and have worked to deal with.
EMMA- I
wonder if they’ve ever tapped into the fact that disability potentially could
be used to an intelligence officer’s advantage, that being a disabled spy could
be really helpful. For example – I mean this is 25 years ago, the world has
probably moved on quite a lot – but when I used to go to festivals as a
teenager and a blind person my bag was very gently checked; they would be so
afraid of me, the security people, that they would kind of open the top of it
and have a quick look and then, yeah, yeah go on, you’re grand, you’re grand,
you’re grand. But I just wondered if maybe that would be an advantage; maybe I
could have been a good spy.
GORDON- [Laughs]
maybe you could’ve been. It’s a really good question, whether you can get to
place and do things and talk to people in a way that others can’t requires an
intelligence service’s creativity and maybe thinking in different ways. And
you’re right, having a different perspective, a different background, and maybe
being treated in a different way, as you said, maybe could carry advantages.
It’s a good question, and it does make you wonder whether they’ve tapped into
that and whether they’ve used it. But here’s the problem: I think if they have
they might not tell us [laughter].
EMMA- No.
Well, I mean Chris McCausland who’s a blind comedian who’s on Strictly Come
Dancing at the moment, he’s always talked about – whether it’s true or not
again – he got down to the last 30 when applying for MI5. He said that his
eyesight was the final barrier. But again, could be just a story.
GORDON- [Laughs]
EMMA- But
I think that’s really interesting. And I think it brought me to thinking are
there any well-known disabled people who have worked for the MI5 or the other
agencies?
GORDON- Well,
definitely in GCHQ, as I said Alan Turing is an interesting example about
someone who’d be neurodivergent. In MI6 there’s an interesting story about the
very first chief who was a guy called Mansfield Cumming, and Mansfield Cumming
actually lost his leg in a car crash while he was chief of MI6 during the First
World War. He would then go around Whitehall, so the government offices, on a
scooter. And I think there is a reference in MI6 now I think still to a group
calling itself Scooter, which is trying to improve awareness of disability,
which I assume is a little reference to that first chief, Mansfield Cumming,
going around on his scooter.
EMMA- I
love that. And Richard Moore, chief of MI6?
GORDON- That’s
right, yeah.
EMMA- Still
chief, his wife is blind apparently so he’s probably got quite a lot of
understanding as well of disability within the agencies, which I think is a
positive thing. I also read a great story about a woman called Virginia Hall.
Have you heard of her?
GORDON- Yes.
An American I think, is that right?
EMMA- Yes.
GORDON- From
the Second World War era.
EMMA- Yes.
So, she’s from the US, she worked for the British in World War 2 in and
she organised resistance. And she had a prosthetic that she called Cuthbert. I
love that story. It’s so fun, isn’t it?
GORDON- [Laughs]
yeah it is, it is. But yes, I think Richard Moore at MI6 has definitely been
very vocal in talking about that importance of being open to different people
and welcoming them. And, as you said, partly because of his own background and
his wife. So, I think there is much more openness in talking about it, but I
think that’s also a recognition there is still work to do there in the
intelligence community which has in the past been quite closed and quite
separate.
EMMA- Well,
Gordon Corera, BBC’s security correspondent, thank you so much for taking some
time out of your currently very busy schedule to chat to us about this.
GORDON- It’s
a pleasure. Thank you very much for asking.
EMMA- Well,
I for one am very, very glad that that episode is out in the world because I do
struggle to keep secrets, and that was a very long secret to keep. Phew!
Anyway, please get in touch with us if you have thoughts about this or anything
else. You know I absolutely love to hear from you whatever you want to say,
whatever’s going on in your life, whatever you want to tell me please do
me. So, our email is accessall@bbc.co.uk.
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of the night. See you next week. Bye.
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