Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of (a) women and (b) men have made a statutory application to request flexible working in his Department; and how many of those applications have been granted to date.

Decisions on flexible working patterns for individual civil servants are taken locally by the individuals’ line managers and that information is not stored centrally. To establish the figures from all local sections of the Department, about the uptake of flexi-time, compressed hours, term-time working and other flexible working arrangements, by gender, would therefore incur disproportionate costs.