Question to the Department for International Development:

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

DFID supports flexible working. Any request to work flexibly is made directly to an individual’s line manager and agreed at that level. A statutory application which would be reviewed by HR would only be submitted if agreement or compromise between the individual and line manager could not be made. We have no record of receiving any such an application at the centre for the last 2 years.