Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy to collect socio-economic information on the (a) Future Leaders' Scheme, (b) Senior Leaders' Scheme, (c) High Potential Development Scheme for Directors and (d) other internal talent management schemes.

Collecting socio-economic information for participants on the Future Leaders Scheme, the Senior Leaders Scheme and the High Potential Development Scheme has been defined as a priority action in the Government publication “Improving Social Mobility in the Civil Service” (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-actions-to-improve-social-mobility-in-the-civil-service).

For the 2015 intake of the Future Leaders Scheme and Senior Leaders Scheme, the Cabinet Office has collected socio-economic information on all candidates from the point of their nomination. For the Individual Development Programme and High Potential Development Scheme, this information will be collected from successful candidates from December. We commit to collecting this information through selection for our talent programmes on an annual basis and expanding it from 2016 onwards.

The socio-economic information currently collected is based on the Social Mobility Toolkit (http://www.professionsforgood.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SocialMobilityToolkit-2014-low-res.pdf). However, there is an ongoing review into the most effective and appropriate definition for social mobility, which we will align with in future years. This work is being led by The Bridge Group, a charitable policy association promoting social mobility, as part of research they are undertaking on social mobility in the Civil Service Fast Stream.