PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Home Office: Disability (15 May 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, 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.

Asked by:
Caroline Nokes (Conservative)

The Home Office has supported the Disability Confident Scheme since August 2016, as a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader. The Home Office attained subsequent re-accreditation, at Level 3, in March 2021, and, again in March 2024.

The Home Office remains committed to being a Disability Confident Leader and seeks to break down the barriers to career progression, to maximise the talent disabled people bring to the workplace.

The Department takes an evidence-led approach, to closely monitor disability representation, at all points of the employee life cycle.

The Home Office:

• has a dedicated workplace adjustments team, to support colleagues and line managers, alongside a dedicated team to support those that use assisted technology in the workplace. To supplement this, the Home Office has a workplace adjustment guidance, and line managers are invited to attend awareness session to increase line management capability.
• have dedicated guidance on reasonable adjustments in recruitment for vacancy holders to work with. This is designed to ensure that disabled applicants experience a level playing field in the recruitment process.
• regularly evaluates the effectiveness of Disability related policies and practices, alongside wider inclusion interventions.
• work closely with our accessibility team to ensure our website is compliant with Public Sector Body Accessibility Regulations. For example, all our videos have closed captions, audio description versions and are accompanied by transcripts.
• website also includes information on how to request reasonable adjustments when applying.
• has a dedicated Disability champion at Director General level, who reports directly to the Permanent Secretary. The Home Office Disability champion chairs a Disability champion board every six weeks, which is attended by directorate level champions and the chair of the Home Disability staff network, where they monitor progress against the internal Home Office Disability action plan.
• evaluates disability representation at all grades within the Department and have met or exceeded our internal target of 12%
• has also enhanced its British Sign Language provision for D/deaf colleagues.

The Department encourages disabled staff to participate in all Home Office led talent programmes, in line with their chosen career progression. The tables below show the Disability representation as of March 2024.

Delegate Grades
Group	Target	AA	AO	EO	HEO	SEO	Grade 7	Grade 6	SCS
Disability	12%*	20%	18%	15%	13%	13%	12%	12%	13%

*The Home Office Disability target reflects the economically active population, or the existing Home Office representation, whichever is higher.

Home Office Disability recruitment data shows a year-on-year increase in the percentage representation of candidates with disabilities at each stage of the recruitment process, which can be seen in the table below.

% of disabled candidates	2021	2022	2023
Application stage	8.5%	9.1%	9.6%
Successful Sift	9.6%	10.1%	10.4%
Successful Interview	8.8%	9.3%	9.8%
Ready to Hire	8.8%	9.1%	9.5%

Answered by:
Chris Philp (Conservative)
20 May 2024