Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he has taken to increase representation within the Diplomatic Service of people from (a) minority ethnic groups and (b) working class backgrounds.

• With regard to race and ethnicity, the FCDO became a signatory to the Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter on day one of our merger, which will help guide our efforts to reflect the diversity of the UK population we serve. We launched the FCDO Summit Programme, a new leadership programme designed to support and develop talented Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff, which will help remove perceived and actual barriers to progression. Latest published diversity data, in 2019-20 Annual Report for the FCO (comprising the Diplomatic Service), shows that as of 31 March 2020 17% of UK-based staff identify as BAME, compared with 13% of the UK's economically active population, and that of the 68 Fast Stream entrants recruited, 23.5% identified as BAME.
• With regard to socio-economic background, 100% of outreach work (undertaken by the FCDO's legacy departments, FCO and DFID, pre-Covid-19), was targeted at non-selective state schools with above average levels of Free School Meals/low levels of attainment. Further details of measures to promote socio-economic diversity are captured in the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) Index for 2020, which ranked legacy FCO (comprising the Diplomatic Service) 37 out of the 119 participating employers, compared with 73 out of 106 participating employers in 2018.