Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 13 November 2017 to Question 111417, on Public Sector: Recruitment, which civil service roles were not identified as suitable for removal of the box under the ban the box initiative.

As a default position, the Civil Service will ‘Ban the Box’ when it advertises job vacancies.

There are some business areas across the Civil Service where it will be inappropriate to apply Ban the Box. This will only occur where there is a clear, justifiable business need to understand a candidate’s conviction history at the application stage in the recruitment process. An exception is most likely to apply to roles that are particularly sensitive in nature, for example; work with children and vulnerable adults of positions connected to public safety. Permanent Secretaries are accountable for the exceptions process. The Cabinet Office do not hold a central record of which civil service roles were not identified as suitable for the Ban the Box initiative.