Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many equalities impact assessments his Department completed in each of the last five years for which data is available.

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.

Notwithstanding this, the information requested is not held centrally in the Department and to provide what might be available would incur disproportionate cost. The Department promotes awareness of the Duty and relevant analytical and other tools to help ensure compliance with it.