Neil O'Brien

The National Church Institutions first started collecting attendance data centrally in the autumn of 2000; as a result, it is not possible to publish data for the period 1994-1999. A methodological change also took place between 2000 and 2003 which means statistics for those years are not directly comparable with the data now collected. The data displayed below shows the longest period of comparable figures available, from 2003-2022.

Attendance figures are collected from churches for the first 4 Sundays of October and in the following Monday-Saturday midweek periods - this exercise is referred to as the "October count”. Figures include attendance at baptisms, as these usually take place in service, but not attendance at weddings and funerals. Attendance at services for schools is NOT included in the average weekly and average Sunday attendance figures but is reported separately.

In 2013, the question was changed to specifically ask about attendance at school services. Prior to 2013, it was apparent that some churches included such attendance in their reported figures while others did not. The change in question during this year resulted in a large change in the average weekly attendance from 2012 to 2013 and a more consistent practice across the church as a whole.

The table below shows the number of confirmations conducted in the Church of England each year since 1994.

As the Established Church, every member of the public, whatever their belief, living within a parish in England has the right to access baptism, marriage and burial services of the Church of England as long as performing that service is lawful under Canon Law.

The detailed data on the number of baptism and confirmation services is published in the annual data ‘Statistics for Mission’.

Post 2009 figures can be found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-11/statisticsformission2022_tables.xlsx

Pre-2009 figures can be found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/data-services/resources-publications-and-data#na

The Church of England law around church buildings is complex, but there are two main types; a consecrated church building where the bishop has performed a rite of consecration, setting the church building (and font and altar) aside for public worship, and a place of worship that has been licensed for that purpose by the bishop (not consecrated).

The Church of England does not have a rite of "deconsecration" as such – it is more usual to refer to the 'closure' of a church that is consecrated. The process of closure is a legal one, set out in the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011 and its predecessor legislation. The bishop's consecration of a church building for worship cannot be removed. However, the legal effects of consecration can be withdrawn in order to allow the disposal of the building and a new use to be found for the building.

Since 1994 there have been around 650 closure schemes for consecrated church buildings brought forward under the Mission and Pastoral Measure. In some of those cases, the closed church building will have been sold to other Christian denominations for worship use, and in some cases some occasional worship continues, even if the closed church building is being used for community activities, for example.

The number of equality impact assessments completed by each Department is not collected centrally.

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions.

Departments are individually responsible for the monitoring of their own equality assessments and their compliance with the Duty. An ‘equality impact assessment’ (EIA) may be produced. However, this is not a legal requirement.

Currently eight people in the House of Commons have job roles including these words in the title: seven in the Diversity & Inclusion team and one person in HR, responsible for the disability specific workplace adjustment process.

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty), all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ (EIAs) may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) HR shared service provider and is therefore responsible for EIAs at the AGO. In the last five years, GLD has completed four EIAs when making substantive changes to HR policies and procedures (two EIAs in 2021 and two in 2023).

The AGO has completed no EIAs relating to policy changes. This aligns with its role as a department that does not hold policy in its own right.

No job titles in the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), the Government Legal Department (GLD), and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) include the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employs 6260 members of staff and 21 members of staff within the Department have one or more of the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has no staff with these words in their job titles, however, one of the SFO’s Strategic Objectives is to build an effective and inclusive workforce, treating their staff fairly and with respect and dignity. There are also a large number of people in the organisation engaged on improving equality, diversity and inclusion across the office.

There are 15 active networks listed below:

• Flexible working and job share,

• Carers,

• Parenting,

• CORE (Race),

• ABLE (disability),

• Social Mobility,

• Menopause,

• Faith & Belief,

• Christian Network,

• Civil Service Jewish Network,

• LGBT+,

• EU Nationals

• EngAge (intergenerational/age)

• Gender Equality Group.

• Neurodiversity Network

The No10 Data Science Team has a remit to improve the way in which key decisions are informed by data, analysis, and evidence using cutting-edge data science techniques. This enables the Government to use the best available evidence, throughout the policy and decision-making process, to drive long-term systems change and enable staff to collectively solve the most pressing policy challenges. They also use data to track delivery of government priority programs, working closely with Delivery Unit. Notwithstanding, the Government would not normally comment on the details of policy development and formation, nor the process by which collective decisions are made across government.

The team also runs a transformation program including: (1) project rAPId, a free, open source, lightweight data sharing system; (2) the No10 Innovation Fellowships, bringing industry expertise in AI into central government on year-long secondments to improve public services; (3) Evidence House, a program to upskill civil servants in data science, AI and software engineering; and crowdsource technical solutions to wicked problems; and (4) creating and managing the new Incubator for Artificial Intelligence, a 30-strong team of AI experts who are working on rapid delivery of AI projects in line with the Prime Minister’s priorities.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 31st January is attached.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 31st January is attached.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon Members Parliamentary Question of 18th December is attached. I will also deposit a copy of the dataset in the House Libraries.

Nine DBT staff members have the words equality and/or gender in their job titles. These roles are all externally facing roles, responsible for negotiating provisions and chapters within bilateral and multilateral contexts. There are no DBT staff members with diversity; inclusion; LGBT; or race in their job title.

The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the

equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI

spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ may be produced, there is no legal requirement for Duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.

The Department promotes awareness of the Duty as well as relevant analytical and other tools to help ensure compliance with the Duty in departmental decision making.

Organogram data is released by all central government departments and their agencies. Snapshots are published on 31st January, 30th April, 31st July and 31st October. The published data is validated and released in CSV format and OGL-licensed for reuse.

Please refer to the link below:

https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/55efc916-edbb-4468-8c71-0786cb9463c1/desnz-organogram-of-staff-roles-salaries

All teams have a duty to consider equality in their own policy areas. The Human Resources directorate is responsible for departmental equality considerations and for providing advice and guidance to the Department on equalities-related issues, including the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).

The table below refers to the organisations as per your question:

There is currently no centrally recorded list of job titles held within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

UKRI’s workforce, including the Research Councils, consists of 8,733 people. Of this total, 22 have the search terms requested in their job title. Not all of the roles are full time.

The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.

Currently across DSIT, there are three members of staff that hold roles which include the word inclusion. There is a nil return related on job titles which include the terms equality, diversity, gender, LGBT and race.

The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June.

As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.

In line with the Public Sector Equality Duty, all public authorities, including our Department, are required by law to have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ are a tool utilised in this process, there is no legal requirement for these assessments to be recorded in a specific format or centrally monitored. Therefore, providing data for each year is currently not feasible.

I wrote in May to the FTSE 100 Group and accountancy firms, highlighting the importance of paying promptly.

We are engaging with Prompt Payment Code signatories on reforming the Code and will consult on strengthening the Small Business Commissioner’s powers.

Data regarding the number of staff employed by each Government Department is published monthly as part of routine Government transparency. The most recent report was published in August, covering the Department’s headcount and payroll data for July 2020, and can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-workforce-management-information-july-2020.

There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.

The Department encourages all staff to complete Unconscious Bias training through Civil Service Learning.

We are only able to draw data from 1^st April 2018, and 84% of Unconscious Bias training since that date was delivered online and therefore incurred no cost.

The estimated cost of the face-to-face training over the same period is shown in the table below.

There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity or inclusion in their job title.

The National Lottery Community Fund currently has four employees with job titles which include the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT or (f) race.

The average number of Arts Council England employees (headcount) during the most recent reported year (2022-23) was 700. 11 members of staff have job titles which include one of these words.

There are five roles in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that contain any of these words. This includes roles in our sector teams with responsibility for taking forward the government’s commitment to increasing participation in sport.

The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.