Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, in the past twelve months, how many disciplinary cases were concluded against civil servants in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies broken down by (i) outcome and (ii) whether the primary allegation related to (A) performance and (B) conduct.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's Question. I will write to him when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost was of (a) settlement agreements and (b) special severance payments made to departing staff in the last year.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's Question. I will write to him when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of staff in each grade were rated in the top performance category in the last year.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the Hon. Member's Question. I will write to him when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average number of working days lost to sickness absence per full-time equivalent member of staff was in (a) his Department and (b) its executive agencies in the last year; and how many formal performance warnings were issued to staff whose absence exceeded departmental triggers.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's Question. I will write to him when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of staff were promoted (a) in-grade and (b) to a higher grade in the last year by (i) performance marking in the previous year and (ii) grade.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
It is taking time to collate the required information to answer the hon. Member's Question. I will write to him when the information is available, and a copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of The House.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 26 September 2024 to Question 1555 on Ministry of Defence: Equality and with reference to the Freedom of Information Act response with reference FOI2025/21409, disclosed on 12 September 2025, if he will publish that response.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is content for this Freedom of Information request response to be published, and a copy is provided below.
Request:
“How many staff in the MOD have job titles that includes at least one of the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT or (f) race?
How many staff in each of the armed forces have job titles that includes at least one of the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT or (f) race?”
Following an internal review on 27 August 2025, this was refined to:
“In your letter of 12 August you state that if I am:
“willing to accept a response to your request that was based on the searchable data held in MOD’s two human resources databases: MyHR, for civilians and the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA), for military personnel, we would be able to provide this to you.”
I would be happy to receive the information on that basis – thank you.”
Response:
In a competitive age, our advantage derives from the talent and skills of our people. We must attract, recruit, and retain the best people drawn from the broadest diversity of thought, skills and background. Roles flagged as LGBT are predominantly working on implementing the LGBT Veterans Review and Financial Recognition Scheme.
Civil Service (data taken from MyHR):
Section 1: Position Titles | Number of People in Positions |
(a) Equality | 0 |
(b) Diversity | 20 |
(c) Inclusion | 3 |
(d) Gender | 0 |
(e) LGBT | 7 |
(f) Race | 0 |
|
|
Section 2: Additional Related Position Titles |
|
Diversity and Inclusion | 4 |
D&I | 10 |
|
|
Section 3: Job Description |
|
Diversity and Inclusion* | 18 |
Total number of unique individuals in positions one of the above terms | 55 |
*7 of the 18 are also included in the position title section and/or additional related position title (section 1 and 2).
Caveats/explanations as follows:
Armed Forces (data taken from JPA):
Service | Position Titles and Number of People in Positions | Total | |||||
Diversity | Diversity & Inclusion | Gender Race | Gender & | Inclusion | LGBT | ||
Army | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 9 |
Royal | 0 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Royal Air Force | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 5 |
Total | 2 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 22 |
Caveats/explanations as follows:
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many employment tribunal claims have been lodged against his Department by (a) unfair dismissal and (b) claims under the Equality Act 2010 in each of the last five years.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The below tables show the number of Employment Tribunal claims recorded under the categories of (a) unfair dismissal and (b) claims under the Equality Act 2010 for each financial year from 2020-21 to 2025-26.
It is important to note that some cases are recorded with one claim category, such as unfair dismissal, while others are recorded with multiple claim categories, such as constructive dismissal and failure to make reasonable adjustments which is why claims under the Equality Act 2010 have increased.
Figures fewer than 3 have been replaced with [c] to limit inadvertent disclosure of personal data.
| Number of Claims | |
Financial Year | Unfair Dismissal | Under the Equality Act 2010 |
2020-2021 | [c] | 4 |
2021-2022 | 10 | 14 |
2022-2023 | 7 | 23 |
2023-2024 | 9 | 27 |
2024-2025 | 9 | 27 |
2025-2026 | 18 | 39 |
Defence must be an environment in which everyone feels supported, valued, and confident to give their best, regardless of their backgrounds. There are a number of live intiiatives in the Department I am overseeing, designed to encourage individuals to feel safe and able to raise concerns about inappropriate behaviour and result in 100% action where it is proven, demonstrating Defence takes such concerns seriously.
In addition to the MOD Raising our Standards programme, a civilian HR Casework Improvements Project is reviewing the end-to-end delivery of HR casework. It launched a new universal casework model in February 2025 which overhauled HR systems, policies and procedures to ensure they are more supportive and fair, independent and transparent, with efficiencies reducing timescales; all ultimately improving the employee experience. Further more, in response to feedback on our current Raising a Concern (Whistleblowing) Policy and Procedure, Defence has committed to a comprehensive, ministerial-led review of Whistleblowing in Defence. The final report and recommendations from this Review are to be published and laid before Parliament in April 2026.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many staff in (a) Defence Equipment and Support and (b) the Submarine Delivery Agency have job titles which include the words (i) equality, (ii) diversity, (iii) inclusion, (iv) gender, (v) LGBT and (vi) race.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Staff employed by Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) and the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA) have both a Success Profile and an Email Tally. Success Profiles provide outlines of roles, key responsibilities and formal qualifications needed, as well as required technical competences and behaviours, which are aligned to wider Civil Service behaviours. No DE&S or SDA Success Profile title includes the words ‘equality’, ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘gender’, ‘LGBT’ or ‘race’.
In DE&S Email Tallies comprise individual’s Profession, Skills Group and a unique number. In SDA Email Tallies are short summaries of an individual’s current team and role. In both cases these appear after individuals’ names in the MOD’s Global Address List.
In total fewer than five members of staff across DE&S and SDA have Email Tallies that include either the word ‘diversity’ and/or the word ‘inclusion’, or abbreviations thereof. No Email Tallies in either DE&S or SDA include the words ‘equality’, ‘gender’, ‘LGBT’ or ‘race’.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many staff left his Department in each of the last five years by grade.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The table below shows the outflow of Ministry of Defence Civil Servants by grade within the last five years.
Grade | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
Senior Civil Service | 46 | 73 | 54 | 63 | 72 |
Grade 6 | 73 | 140 | 132 | 137 | 138 |
Grade 7 | 259 | 411 | 358 | 551 | 429 |
SEO | 510 | 922 | 947 | 993 | 876 |
HEO | 800 | 1,200 | 1,207 | 1,113 | 1,044 |
EO | 724 | 1,088 | 969 | 873 | 745 |
AO | 949 | 1,537 | 1,453 | 1,556 | 1,347 |
AA | 309 | 412 | 446 | 455 | 478 |
Other Grades | 88 | 120 | 457 | 225 | 40 |
Total | 3,758 | 5,903 | 6,023 | 5,966 | 5,169 |
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many staff in his Department are recorded as having a (a) mental health condition and (b) physical disability by grade.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Information on the number of people declaring a disability by each Government Department is published annually as part of Civil Service Statistics 2025, an accredited official statistics publication. Latest published data as at 31 March 2025 can be found at Table 29 of the statistical tables at the following web address:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2025
Information on mental health conditions or type of disability is not reported as part of the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey, however the Ministry of Defence (MOD) does record them based on voluntary self-declarations which is then recorded on the MOD’s HR systems.
The tables below outline the number of recorded Physical and Mental Health disabilities within the department as at 31 October 2025.
Physical Disability | |
Paid Grade Grouping | Total |
Senior Civil Service | 17 |
Senior Leadership Group | 6 |
Grade 6 | 49 |
Senior Professional | 35 |
Grade 7 | 103 |
Professional I | 106 |
Senior Executive Officer | 277 |
Professional II | 243 |
Higher Executive Officer | 365 |
Senior Technical Specialist I | 160 |
Executive Officer | 323 |
Senior Technical Specialist II | 66 |
Administrative Officer | 390 |
Technical Specialist I | 70 |
Administrative Assistant | 117 |
Apprentice | ≤5 |
Graduate | ≤5 |
NHS Grades | 17 |
Outside Banding Structure | ≤5 |
Retained Grades | 61 |
Skillzone 1 | 14 |
Skillzone 2 | 58 |
Skillzone 3 | 32 |
Skillzone 4 | 6 |
Total | 2,522 |
Mental Health Disability | |
Paid Grade Grouping | Total |
Senior Civil Service | 7 |
Senior Leadership Group | ≤5 |
Grade 6 | 17 |
Senior Professional | 11 |
Grade 7 | 47 |
Professional I | 45 |
Senior Executive Officer | 125 |
Professional II | 112 |
Higher Executive Officer | 164 |
Senior Technical Specialist I | 135 |
Executive Officer | 138 |
Senior Technical Specialist II | 38 |
Administrative Officer | 148 |
Technical Specialist I | 42 |
Administrative Assistant | 55 |
Apprentice | 7 |
Graduate | ≤5 |
NHS Grades | 11 |
Retained Grades | 24 |
Veterans Agency | ≤5 |
Skillzone 1 | ≤5 |
Skillzone 2 | 18 |
Skillzone 3 | 8 |
Skillzone 4 | ≤5 |
Total | 1,166 |
Please note that the data in these tables do not reflect the actual numbers of MOD employees with a mental health or physical condition, but the number of employees who have self-voluntarily recorded their condition as a disability.
Where figures are less than or equal to 5, the data is shown as ‘≤5’ to avoid identifying the individuals concerned.