Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps their Department is taking to support the Disability Confident scheme; how many officials in their Department work directly on supporting that scheme; what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of that work in supporting the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of disabled people in their Department; and what further steps they are taking to support their Department’s recruitment and retention of disabled people.

Defra has achieved Level 3 (Leader) of the Disability Confident scheme, this achievement is renewed every 3 years and we are currently working towards the renewal for 2024.

Although not working directly on the scheme, our Director General for Strategy leads as a senior Disability Champion, along with 2 Deputy Directors as Deputy Disability Champions, and they support and champion the requirements of the Disability Confident scheme within Defra.

These appointments are as recommended by the Disability Confident scheme provisions and additionally there is a Defra group Disability Board, chaired by the Executive Champion. This Board’s role is to ensure that actions and plans are in place and regularly reviewed to meet the provisions of the Disability Confident scheme and wider action to support employees with disabilities, impairments and long term medical conditions across the department.

Over the last 3 years disability representation across Defra group has increased from 14.3% to a representation rate of 17.2%. Within core Defra the current representation rate is 16.8% which is in line with the current disability target representation of the UK working age population.