Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure his Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.

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 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics.

BEIS routinely collects a wide variety of data relating to its employees; much of this is published and is publicly available on GOV.UK.

BEIS Human Resources teams use this data to review the impact of our policies and procedures in line with the Civil Service Code, and other our statutory obligations, and make recommendations for improvements, as necessary. Data is shared with Departmental Trades Union Side (DTUS) as necessary and on request.