Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure her Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.

Defra Group complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code and regularly monitors EDI data, as regards all protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010.

This Data is captured via self-declaration via Shared Serves Platform. This data is utilised to monitor all aspects of employee lifecycle, including recruitment, retention, in year award / recognition, performance ratings, L&D / Talent and promotions to ensure equal access of opportunity to all. Furthermore, Equality impact Assessments are conducted at the point of policy creation and revision in order to assess impact and effectiveness of internal policies and action plans across protected characteristics.

All monitoring data collated and analysed by the department is shared with the trade unions representing staff covered by the Departmental Trade Union framework (the core department and Executive Agencies), Natural England and the Environment Agency. Workforce data is published annually via Defra Annual Report.

Please note, that 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code (CSMC) does not place an obligation on departments to share this information with their representative trade unions.

We have made good progress in recent years in diversifying the Civil Service. The percentage of civil servants from an ethnic minority background is at 15.0% and the percentage of those who declare themselves disabled is at 14.0%. Staff who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or other (LGBO) is 6.1% and the proportion of female civil servants stands at 54.5%. These rates are all at their highest recorded levels. However, we know there is still progress to be made in ensuring we are representative of the citizens we serve across all our grades.

The new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2025 recognises our success and builds on this good work to encourage a broader range of people into the Civil Service to give depth to our understanding of contemporary society in the United Kingdom. It provides the necessary framing for diversity and inclusion activity in the Civil Service as part of our wider workforce strategy, and through that, how the Civil Service delivers for its people, the Government and our citizens.

A link to the Civil Service statistics can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics