Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the (a) physical and (b) mental wellbeing of staff employed in her Department.

The Civil Service has set out five priorities for the health and wellbeing of its employees, including priorities in relation to physical and mental wellbeing. In addition, the Civil Service has also committed to being a leading employer on mental health support, in line with the recommendations set out in the recently published independent review Thriving At Work. We will benchmark our department to see how the support we provide employees currently measures up to the recommendations set out in the October 2017 Farmer/Stevenson review. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has also recently been awarded level 3 of the Disability Confident Scheme.

In DCMS dedicated Health and Well-being help is available on the intranet. This covers the Civil Service priority areas and includes information on how to cope with stress with frequent articles and blogs on mental health, musculoskeletal issues and embracing a healthy lifestyle.

In addition the Department provides information and support to help all employees to stay well and manage their health conditions at work. This support includes a variety of programmes like occupational health support, counselling support through the Employee Assistance Programme, HR Casework team and the Civil Service Workplace Adjustments Service which helps with adjustments for employees suffering from a mental health or physical condition. Line Managers also have access to a Stress Assessment and Reduction Plan toolkit for identifying and managing stress when required.

The Department is a signatory to the Time to Change Pledge and raises awareness of the support available through national campaigns such as the “Time to Talk” day and the Mental Health Awareness Week.

The Department supports the Employee Mental Health Network with a Senior Civil Servant Champion and has introduced Mental Health First Aiders and Champions who are trained to provide support and guide people towards appropriate professional help. The Network has had the visible support of the Department’s Permanent Secretary and Ministers.

The Civil Service Unconscious Bias training is mandatory for all employees and the Department is working with line managers to support individuals with mental health conditions, part of which is encouraging line managers to undertake the Mental Health Awareness eLearning available on the Civil Service Learning Portal.

The department participates in the Civil Service Workplace Challenges which promotes physical activities such as The Active Lunch Challenge, the Walking Challenge and the Physical Activity Week. We also promote national campaigns such as the One You campaign.