PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Department for Transport: Ethnic Groups (9 September 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of staff who applied for promotion within his Department between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020 and identified as (a) BAME and (b) White were successful at each grade; and if he will make a statement.

Asked by:
Apsana Begum (Independent)

Diversity and Inclusion is at the heart of resourcing across the Department for Transport (DfT); developing and testing innovative new approaches to attract and hire a more diverse candidate pool. We have clear objectives to increase representation rates to reflect the proportion of BAME individuals in the local working-age population, strengthen our BAME talent pipeline (grades 6 and 7) and our leadership cadre (SCS) as well as increase diversity in roles and professions where BAME staff are underrepresented.

The data provided relates to roles advertised by the Department for Transport on the Civil Service Jobs recruitment platform. Any permanent promotion opportunities within the department would be advertised on the platform to allow fair and open competition with an appointment being made on merit in line with the Civil Service Commissioners principles.

The data provided is based on identifications of applicants who are currently Civil Servants in any government department or agency, and is not restricted to promotions just from the DfT workforce and covers the Department and its four executive agencies. It does not include the diversity of applicants or successful applicants who were applying from outside the Civil Service. The data can be found in the attached table.

The completeness and accuracy of the data above is influenced by the following factors.

For vacancies advertised across government, individuals need to have a verified account to confirm their eligibility as existing Civil Servants. As part of their personal profile, Civil Servants are requested to provide their current substantive grade. If individuals have not completed their personal profile we would be unable to identify whether they were promoted.

For vacancies advertised externally, individuals have the option to use a privately registered account as there is no requirement for them to confirm that they are existing Civil Servants. This means that in the instance that an existing Civil Servant applies for an externally advertised vacancy using a private account, then we cannot identify whether or not the successful individual is being promoted.

In light of this, the data provided may not be comprehensive and would only be indicative of ‘how many and what proportion of Civil Service staff who applied for promotion within his Department between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020 and identified as (a) BAME and (b) White were successful at each grade’.

Answered by:
Chris Heaton-Harris (Conservative)
17 September 2020