Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what targets his Department has for increasing diversity; and what progress has been made on meeting those targets in the last year.

The MoJ has a longstanding commitment to promoting equality of opportunity and making sure that we are representative of the society we serve. The principle of appointment on merit is the foundation of Civil Service recruitment and enshrined in law.

The MoJ does not have any published targets but we annually review and publish the demographics of our workforce - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/diversity-report-2012-13

This information is used to inform policy of action in the future and set out in the MoJ Equality Objectives-https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209087/moj-equality-objectives.pdf#

We have made good progress in making the MoJ a more diverse place to work. For example, the MoJ's management board has an equal mix of women and men at Executive (50%) and Non-Executive level (50%) levels, and we are led by a female Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan.

17% of MoJ staff members promoted last year were not white. This is an increase of 2% on the previous year. 10% more women were promoted in 2012/2013 than in 2011/2012.