Civil Servants: Recruitment

(asked on 6th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Civil Service Fast Stream: recruitment data 2019, 2020 and 2021, what steps his Department took to ensure that the Fast Stream successful applicants were from diverse (a) socio-economic and (b) ethnic backgrounds.


Answered by
Michael Ellis Portrait
Michael Ellis
This question was answered on 12th January 2022

Success rates for lower socio-economic applicants in Fast Stream have been increasing annually since 2017, with 2021 success rates approximately three times the 2016 figure.

73% of Fast Stream appointments in 2021 were outside London (against 69.5% in 2019). Regional appointments are achieved through the widest possible spread of school and college work experience opportunities, apprenticeships, internships and Fast Stream roles. Attraction activity for roles is delivered both country-wide and through online sites to deliver geographic diversity and meet our levelling up ambitions.

Steps to support both diverse socio-economic and ethnic minority applicants are broadly similar except that partners and the target audiences differ, according to these groups. Outreach, attraction and marketing is designed to encourage applications from individuals from all backgrounds and locations via early stage schools, college and apprenticeship engagement, along with industrial placements. We have developed an inclusive website, and social media strategy, refreshed the target university list, and are undertaking outreach with diverse universities and engaging with diversity partners to support events. Activity also encompasses expanding the range of internships, undertaking cultural bias reviews of our selection processes, increasing assessor diversity, and continually improving our fair and inclusive selection processes, for example, incorporating more regional/virtual assessment.

Historical barriers to Fast Stream employment for applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds were highlighted in the 2016 Bridge Group analysis, suggesting applications were more likely to come from less diverse universities and courses, and from higher socio-economic students, along with there being less awareness of Fast Stream amongst lower socio-economic graduates. There was also, amongst lower socio-economic students, a perception of a slow recruitment process, less geographic diversity in terms of selection and lower performance at selection stage. Significant improvements have been made against these areas, with socio-economic diversity improving consistently for appointments in the last 5 years.

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