Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department has taken to improve social mobility in each of the last seven years.

At present, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is ranked as the UK’s 14^th most progressive employer for social mobility, according to the 2017 Social Mobility Foundation Employer Index.

MoJ embarked on a targeted programme of work to address the issue of social mobility following the publication of the Civil Service Talent Action Plan in March 2016.

The department has a Director General Champion of Social Mobility, and released its first Social Mobility Action Plan in November 2017.

The Plan sets out the department’s ambition in seven key aims, based on the seven sections of the Employer Index: 1) Working with young people, 2) Routes into work, 3) Attraction, 4) Recruitment and selection, 5) Data collection, 6) Progression and 7) Internal / external advocacy.

Each aim is underpinned by associated actions that will promote greater socio-economic diversity and increase opportunities for social mobility across the department.

Recent steps taken to date to improve social mobility can be found at Annex A.