Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps they have taken to operate a disability confident scheme for those seeking promotion in their Department; and how many and what proportion of those candidates who declared themselves as having a disability and who applied under the scheme were (a) interviewed and (b) promoted in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Disability Confident scheme was formally launched by the Department for Work and Pensions in November 2016. It is designed to give employers the skills, techniques and confidence they need to recruit, retain and develop disabled staff.
The scheme has 3 levels. To reach Level 3, Disability Confident Leader, an employer must run through a self-assessment of their disabled employment policies and practices, put this self-assessment up for external validation, produce a plan for encouraging and supporting other employers to become Disability Confident, and undertake to use the Voluntary Reporting framework to publicly report on how they support their disabled staff. All of the main Government Departments are now signed up as Disability Confident Leaders.
Disability Confident employers must commit to offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. The aim of this commitment is to encourage positive action, encouraging disabled people to apply for jobs and provide an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities at the interview stage.
By offering an interview to an applicant who declares they have a disability this does not mean that all disabled people are entitled to an interview. They must meet the minimum criteria (sometimes otherwise described, for example sometimes shown as “desirable skills”) for a job as defined by the employer.
The Disability Confident scheme notes that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. In these circumstances the employer could select the candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as they would do for non-disabled applicants.
Although this is the standard set out in the Disability Confident scheme, as the Civil Service aspires to be the UK’s most inclusive employer, we ask that Departments should, where possible, offer an interview to all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job, in all their recruitment campaigns.
When deciding minimum criteria, consideration should be given to both essential job criteria and minimum performance standards in those criteria. We set the minimum criteria according to the role and the skills required.
Please find below the data regarding candidates who applied under the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) in 2021:
2021 | ||||
Promotion | Lateral Moves | |||
| Number | % of Applications | Number | % of Applications |
Applications | 1806 |
| 729 |
|
Completed Interview | 333 | 18.40% | 116 | 15.90% |
Formal Offer | 97 | 5.40% | 70 | 9.60% |
Please note the following:
Candidates applying on promotion or laterally are only captured for campaigns advertised internally or across-government. Therefore, there will be a number of internal or other government department candidates, who we cannot identify as applying on promotion or level transfer when the campaign was advertised externally.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if they will take steps to (a) publish an equality impact assessment and (b) consult with trade unions when proposing new HR policies for their Department; and if they will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office routinely consults its recognised trade unions when revising existing HR policies or introducing new ones.
Where new policies are being developed equality impact assessments are produced.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps their Department takes to comply with section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992; and if they will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office recognises the following four trade unions for collective bargaining purposes in respect of specific grades of staff:
As part of the regular engagement process the Home Office proactively provides these unions with human resources information to support constructive engagement.
In terms of compliance with section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, the Home Office will constructively consider all requests from its trade unions for information to support collective bargaining. Additionally, the Department has a framework in place for annual pay negotiations with the trade unions which lists standard items of data that will be provided to the unions annually to facilitate the negotiations. The framework also sets out that the Department will consider requests for additional information and aim to respond positively where possible.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure her Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to my response on 30 January 2023 to question 128662. The response can be found here: Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure her Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Civil Service has made good progress in recent years in diversifying its workforce. The percentage of civil servants from an ethnic minority background is at 15.0% and the percentage of those who declare themselves disabled is at 14.0%. Staff who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or other (LGBO) is 6.1% and the proportion of female civil servants stands at 54.5%. These rates are all at their highest recorded levels. However, we know there is more to be achieved to ensure we are representative of the citizens we serve across all our grades.
The new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2025 recognises our success and builds on this good work to encourage a broader range of people into the Civil Service to give depth to our understanding of contemporary society in the United Kingdom. It provides the necessary framing for diversity and inclusion activity in the Civil Service as part of our wider workforce strategy, and through that, how the Civil Service delivers for its people, the government and our citizens.
A link to the Civil Service statistics can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics
The Home Office undertakes the collation of diversity data of our workforce, which includes age, gender, ethnic origin, disability, and (in Northern Ireland) community background of staff and applicants as set out in para 2.1.6 in the civil service management code. This data is used to undertake monitoring and analysis of recruitment, career development including progression, resignations, personal review, salary, performance pay, and access to opportunities for training and personal development. This data is also used to ensure the department discharges its public sector equality duties under s.149 the Equality Act 2010; data is used to routinely inform equality impact assessments where appropriate to effectively consider the different impacts of policies, processes and services across the workforce.
The Home Office also captures data on the professions and job roles which our people undertake. This allows us to understand and monitor the diversity of our workforce in professions and business areas. The Home Office publishes its workforce data annually on GOV.UK
The Home Office is fully committed to the provision of diversity data to its recognised trade unions with available information supplied on a regular basis. However, it should be noted that section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code (CSMC) does not place an obligation on the department to share the information collected on staff and applicants with their representative trade unions.
Detailed information on the Civil Service workforce is collected and published centrally as part of the Annual Civil Service Employment Statistics.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has notified staff to (a) tell or (b) remind them that they can sell annual leave in the last four months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office Annual Leave policy outlines the different options available to employees in relation to managing their leave. In exceptional circumstances where an employee has been unable to take all of their annual leave as a result of unavoidable extra duties it may be possible for them to sell back some of their annual leave with the agreement of their head of unit. The amount that an employee may sell is limited under the Working Time Regulations.
The Home Office leave year runs from 1 March – 28 February. Ahead of the end of the leave year managers and employees will be reminded about the need to manage leave balances and the options available to them.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of employees in their Department are paid at the rate of the National Minimum Wage.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
There are no employees within the Home Office that are paid at the National Minimum/Living Wage. All employees have an hourly rate above £9.50 per hour.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what human resources information their Department shares with trade unions on a regular basis.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office recognises the following four trade unions for collective bargaining purposes in respect of specific grades of staff:
As part of the regular engagement process the Home Office provides these unions with human resources information regarding staffing, pay, sickness absence and diversity and inclusion.
In addition to the provision of this regular data the Department provides the unions, on an ad hoc basis, with HR data in respect of specific issues such as on matters that are subject to negotiation or consultation at a particular point in time.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Ukrainian refugees are awaiting biometric residence permits (a) in the UK, (b) in Scotland and (c) on the MS Ambition in Glasgow as of 16 November 2022; and for what reasons there have been delays in processing those permits.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The information is not available in the format requested and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
The waiting times for biometric residence permits (BRPs) are dictated by the BRP production and delivery processes. We aim to deliver a BRP within 7 working days of the immigration decision.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what was the average number of working days that staff in Immigration Enforcement were unable to work [CLARIFY: due to sickness] in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, and (c) 2021.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Please see table below.
Business Area | Average Working Days Lost (AWDL) |
|
Borders and Enforcement | 9.39 |
|
Data Source: Metis - Home Office Human Capital Management System | ||
Period Covered: 01/07/2021 to 30/06/2022 | ||
Organisational Coverage: Borders and Enforcement data has been provided as Border Force has not existed since the Blueprint changes in October 2021 | ||
Employee Coverage: In line with Cabinet Office guidelines on sickness absence reporting, the data is based on FTE of paid civil servants who had a sickness absence during the period covered. | ||