§ Mr. Hancockasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what has been the total public expenditure on improving home insulation for each of the last five years.
§ Mr. John Patten[pursuant to his answer, 9 March 1987]: The available information is as follows:
1985–86 and 1986–87; if he will also list the monitoring procedures used to ascertain the percentage of the work force represented by ethnic minorities and their patterns of promotion; and what are his methods of recruitment of minorities into his Department.
§ Mr. ButcherThe ethnic origins of new entrants have been surveyed since October 1985. In the period from 1 October 1985 to 28 February 1987, there were 1,739 new entrants to the Department of Trade and Industry. Their ethnic origins were:
Number A White 743 B Non-White 119 C Data not yet available 850 D Non-respondents 27 A phased programme of surveys of the ethnic origin on non-industrial civil servants by means of voluntary self-classification is being conducted by the Department and is expected to be completed during 1987.
All departmental recruitment is conducted on the basis of fair and open competition and selection is on merit. Consideration is being given to ways of using the data on the ethnic origin of staff to monitor promotion.