Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 31 October 2018 to Question 184409, how many of the 170 individuals who have participated in initiatives supported by the cyber skills immediate impact fund pilot are (a) women, (b) BAME and (c) disabled.

The Cyber Skills Immediate Impact Fund (CSIIF) pilot received 25 applications. In line with published CSIIF pilot funding ranges, funding of between £20,000 - £50,000 was available to applicants.

This Fund was designed to boost the cyber security training ecosystem by helping range of organisations quickly develop effective and sustainable initiatives that identify, train and place untapped talent from a range of backgrounds into cyber security roles. We set an internal ambition for the CSIIF pilot to support initiatives to get at least 100 adults into entry level cyber security roles.

Through the CSIIF pilot, we supported two initiatives focusing solely on women and three focusing primarily on supporting neurodiverse candidates. Of the approximately 170 individuals who are either participating or had been identified to take part, provisional figures show 48% declared as neurodiverse, 28% women and 13% BAME. These figures are subject to change and the pilot initiatives are still ongoing. The final evaluation of the pilot in 2019 will provide a final breakdown. We do not hold a figure for the number of disabled applicants.