Equal Opportunities (Hansard, 10 February 1986)

§ Dr. Boyson

I announced on 4 December 1984 the publication of an equal opportunities policy statement which proclaimed and emphasised the commitment of the Northern Ireland Civil Service to equal opportunity for all its staff on the basis of ability, qualifications and aptitude and without regard to religion, sex or any other irrelevant factor.

A comprehensive monitoring system has now been set up by the Department of Finance and Personnel. It is generally accepted that the nature of the management arrangements for the school where the civil servant was educated is the best proxy for determining a person's religious affiliation in Northern Ireland and this information is now held on the computer for just under 95 per cent. of the non-industrial Northern Ireland Civil Service and, within that figure, for 99 per cent. of general service grades in post at 1 January 1985. It was sought by questionnaire supplemented by reference to personal files, and was validated by the issue to all staff of transcripts of the information. As new recruits join the Civil Service, the appropriate information will be added to the data base.

For the purpose of monitoring, "Protestants" are defined as those who were educated in a school attended mainly by Protestant pupils, "Roman Catholics" as those who were educated in a school managed by the Roman Catholic Church and attended mainly by Roman Catholic pupils, and "unknown" as staff who were educated outside Northern Ireland or whose school management type was either undefined or unknown. At this stage of the exercise, disabled staff have been defined as those who are or were at some stage of their careers recorded as registered disabled persons.

A preliminary analysis of the database gives the global composition of the Northern Ireland Civil Service in percentage terms as follows: 328W

	Male	Female	Total
Protestant	30.2	28.2	58.4
Roman Catholic	14.7	18.0	32.7
Unknown	6.0	2.9	8.9
TOTAL	50.9	49.1	100

Note: 1.2 per cent. of this total are disabled.

This analysis is not directly comparable with that previously produced by the Fair Employment Agency for Northern Ireland in its report on the Northern Ireland Civil Service because, for example, it includes some 1,600 staff in ancillary and related grades who were excluded from the Fair Employment Agency's investigation, the proportion of "unknown" is considerably less, and religious affiliation has been based mainly on more accurate information about schooling.

It is intended to analyse the data in considerably greater detail and to produce later in the year a report which will include information similar to that contained in the Fair Employment Agency's report, e.g. disaggregated by Department, broad salary bands, and age, and which will so far as possible provide comparisons with the data in the Fair Employment Agency's report.