Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of (a) her Department's staff and (b) staff working for companies contracted by her Department are paid less than the Living Wage.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Core Defra has no direct employees paid less than the living wage.
There are currently 4 temporary staff from employment agencies who are paid less than the UK Living Wage and employed outside London, and 3 in London paid less than the London Living Wage. These numbers can change at any time.
There are 215 people paid less than the UK Living Wage employed on 2 major contracts, arranged by the core Department and working across the network. There are 40 people working in London and paid less than the London Living Wage.
Information on the breakdown of gender and ethnicity of these people and the proportion they represent is held by the contractors and not core Defra and is only available at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of (a) her Department's staff and (b) staff working for companies contracted by her Department who are paid less than the Living Wage are (i) white British and (ii) from an ethnic minority background.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Core Defra has no direct employees paid less than the living wage.
There are currently 4 temporary staff from employment agencies who are paid less than the UK Living Wage and employed outside London, and 3 in London paid less than the London Living Wage. These numbers can change at any time.
There are 215 people paid less than the UK Living Wage employed on 2 major contracts, arranged by the core Department and working across the network. There are 40 people working in London and paid less than the London Living Wage.
Information on the breakdown of gender and ethnicity of these people and the proportion they represent is held by the contractors and not core Defra and is only available at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many members of her Department's executive board are (a) white British and (b) from any other ethnic background.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Information on the ethnic background of Defra’s Executive Committee cannot be provided as to do so would not be fair processing of their personal data.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many members of her Department's executive board are disabled.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Information on the disability status of Defra’s Executive Committee cannot be provided as to do so would not be fair processing of their personal data.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many members of her Department's executive board are (a) male and (b) female.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The current gender breakdown of members of Defra’s Executive Committee is 4 males and 2 females.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of staff within his Department who have been dismissed following formal disciplinary proceedings in each of the last five financial years classed themselves as white British.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The data in the table relates to staff in core Defra only.
Financial year | Percentage of staff who have been dismissed following formal disciplinary proceedings who have not declared their ethnicity | Percentage of staff who have been dismissed following formal disciplinary proceedings who have declared themselves to be white British |
2009-10 | No dismissals | No dismissals |
2010-11 | No dismissals | No dismissals |
2011-12 | 100% | 0% |
2012-13 | No dismissals | No dismissals |
2013-14 | No dismissals | No dismissals |
Employees declare their ethnicity and national identity on a voluntary basis.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what targets his Department has for increasing diversity; and what progress has been made on meeting those targets in the last year.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The Civil Service has a longstanding commitment to promoting equality of opportunity and ensuring that the Civil Service is representative of the society it serves. Central to this is the principle of appointment on merit which is the foundation of Civil Service recruitment and enshrined in law.
Core Defra does not have numerical targets for increasing our workforce diversity. However, Defra's Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2013-15 contains a clear goal for Defra to become a diverse and inclusive Department ‘that can attract and retain talented people from the widest range of backgrounds and offer all our employees equality of opportunity to progress and achieve their potential on merit.'
Defra is also committed to reviewing our Equality Objectives and monitoring our performance against them and further information is provided in our Workforce Monitoring Report here:
Defra's Diversity and Inclusion Strategy is underpinned by an action plan, with good progress made in the first year, including:
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of staff within his Department who have been subject to formal disciplinary proceedings in each of the last five financial years classed themselves as white British.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The data in the table relates to staff in core Defra only.
Financial Year | Percentage of staff subject to formal disciplinary proceedings who have not declared their ethnicity | Percentage of staff subject to formal disciplinary proceedings who have declared themselves to be white British |
2009-10 | 33% | 67% |
2010-11 | 75% | 25% |
2011-12 | 33% | 67% |
2012-13 | 17% | 67% |
2013-14 | 25% | 67% |
Employees declare their ethnicity and national identity on a voluntary basis.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what consideration his Department gives to the diversity policies and records of businesses or other organisations when considering their bid for commercial contracts or grants.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Core Defra follows Cabinet Office advice in meeting its obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which is part of the Equality Act 2010, when considering bids for commercial contracts or grants.
As part of our evaluation criteria we ask each bidder to provide evidence of their equality and diversity policy or an equivalent document which demonstrates their organisation's commitment to equality and diversity and which is compliant with the relevant legislation.
We ask each bidder to describe the steps they have taken to:
· monitor equality and diversity performance;
· implement training programmes for raising awareness;
· ensure staff and sub-contractors working on the contract comply appropriately with the relevant legislation;
· address cases of discrimination and other breaches and set out measures for preventing recurrences; and
· give the Department full confidence in their organisation's approach to equality and diversity.
A score is allocated to the bidder's response to these questions which forms part of the overall technical evaluation of the bid.