Ministry of Justice: Career Development
(asked on 8th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of staff in his Department were promoted (a) in-grade and (b) to a higher grade in the last year broken down by (i) performance marking in the previous year and (ii) grade.
Number and Rate of Promotions for Ministry of Justice (excluding HMPPS) employees by Grade between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025
Previous Grade of Employee | Average Staff in Post | Number of Promotions | Rate of Promotions per 100 Staff |
Senior Civil Servant | 260 | 4 | 1.5 |
G7/G6 | 3,483 | 99 | 2.8 |
HEO/SEO | 7,750 | 540 | 7 |
EO | 4,567 | 278 | 6.1 |
AA/AO | 11,303 | 379 | 3.4 |
Caveats
1. Promotions relate to staff moving to a more senior grade through an internal process where the move is made on a permanent basis. |
2. Information on in-grade promotions and performance rankings is not available within the centrally held HR administrative system and so this information has not been provided. |
3. Promotions have been assigned to a grade based on the grade the individual was promoted from, rather than their new final grade. Where grades have been grouped together, the total represents all individuals from either grade who were promoted within the financial year. I.e. G7/G6 will represent all individuals who were promoted from a G7 grade and all individuals who were promoted from a G6 grade. |
4. Average Staff in Post is based on the total on-strength headcount of individuals at this grade at the end of each month in the 12-month period of interest |
5. Rate of promotions represents the total number of promotions that occurred in the year per 100 average staff in post Data on the number and proportion of promotions in HMPPS by grade for 24/25 can be found in the HM Prison & Probation Service Staff Equalities Report: 2024-2025 in Table 4b. HM Prison & Probation Service Staff Equalities Report: 2024-2025 - GOV.UK It is not possible to provide the requested data on ‘in-grade promotion’ as this definition does not exist within the Department. It is not possible to provide the data requested broken down by performance marking because the Ministry of Justice uses a rolling cycle of regular performance management conversations – there is no set reporting year or end of year markings. Since 2019, the flexible Performance Management Framework in the Civil Service has enabled Departments to adopt a Performance Management approach to best suit their organisational and cultural needs. There is no common performance rating across Government, and there is no common definition of ‘performance year’. |
Data on the number and proportion of promotions in HMPPS by grade for 24/25 can be found in the HM Prison & Probation Service Staff Equalities Report: 2024-2025 in Table 4b.
HM Prison & Probation Service Staff Equalities Report: 2024-2025 - GOV.UK
It is not possible to provide the requested data on ‘in-grade promotion’ as this definition does not exist within the Department.
It is not possible to provide the data requested broken down by performance marking because the Ministry of Justice uses a rolling cycle of regular performance management conversations – there is no set reporting year or end of year markings. Since 2019, the flexible Performance Management Framework in the Civil Service has enabled Departments to adopt a Performance Management approach to best suit their organisational and cultural needs. There is no common performance rating across Government, and there is no common definition of ‘performance year’.