HL Deb 15 November 2004 vol 666 cc127-8WA
Lord Ouseley

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether posts identified for workforce reductions in the Civil Service are disproportionately held by women, black and ethnic minority employees. [HL4761]

Lord Bassam of Brighton

Departments are, in general, at an early stage of developing specific plans for workforce reductions. It is for departments to determine the selection of posts which could be reduced, having regard to the need to maintain an appropriate balance of skills and expertise to meet their ongoing requirements. Cabinet Office guidance to departments made clear that they need to ensure that their procedures do not result in unlawful discrimination directly or indirectly and to consider the impact of their plans on the diversity of the workforce, so that specific groups of staff are not disproportionately disadvantaged. In particular, departments must consider the need to conduct a race equality impact assessment.

Lord Ouseley

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the overall target of 4 per cent black and ethnic minority staff to be in Senior Civil Service posts by 2008 will do no more than maintain the status quo. [HL4762]

Lord Bassam of Brighton

The 2008 target in fact requires that we increase the number of minority ethnic staff in the Senior Civil Service by almost two-thirds in the next four years. The PSA target also includes the commitment that, in the longer term, the Civil Service reflects the diversity of the population.

The 2008 disability and ethnicity targets will be measured on a slightly different basis from the current targets for 2006; the 2008 targets focus more narrowly on around 3,900 mainstream posts in the Senior Civil Service itself, while the targets for 2005 include all posts at SCS level, encompassing around 500 additional posts, including a number of Diplomatic Service posts and some specialist/professional roles. This change will focus our efforts on maintstream SCS roles and will mean that the ethnicity and disability targets will be measured on a consistent basis with the gender targets (which are currently based on data on the SCS alone). The baseline figure for minority ethnic staff in the SCS against which the target was set is 2.4 per cent (October 2003), compared to the October 2003 SCS level figure of 3.2 per cent.