Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport,what his Department's implementation plan is for banning the box on job applications.

The Department for Transport facilitates all its recruitment through the Civil Service Jobs recruitment platform and has done so since March 2013. This platform does not ask for applicants to enter any criminal record history or declarations at the point of applying. The Department therefore has been aligned with the aims of the Ban the Box initiative from this time.

It is only if an individual is successful in being selected for a role, that information on an individual’s criminal record is requested from the Government Recruitment Service on our behalf in order to conduct the required pre-employment checking.

If an individual does have a criminal record, they are not automatically discounted from being employed by the department and it is for the relevant HR Departments to make a decision as to whether the nature of the offence would prevent the individual from being able to carry out the job role as well as the level of risk.