Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department operates a ban the box employment policy in respect of ex-offender job applicants with unspent convictions; and how many employees of his Department have unspent convictions.

Ban the box encourages employers to remove the tick box asking about criminal convictions on application forms. The application form template used by Civil Service Resourcing for DWP recruitment does not ask about criminal convictions.

As part of the external recruitment process, successful candidates for DWP vacancies are required to undertake a pre-employment check which includes a Basic Criminal record check via Disclosure Scotland.

The check only highlights convictions which are classed as unspent.

If the check highlights an unspent conviction, a decision is made by the business in consultation with their HR Business Partner (HRBP) on whether to offer the candidate a post. If a post is offered, the pre-employment checks will simply be recorded as having been passed, or if a decision is made not to offer a post, the pre-employment checks will be recorded as being failed. It should be noted that the pre-employment checks can also be failed for a number of other reasons. The reason for the pre-employment check fail is not recorded.

As a result DWP, is unable to provide figures for the number of former prisoners that are currently employed within the department.