§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what amounts of money have been paid out by(a) his Department and (b) executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies and other organisations for which he is accountable to Parliament, to how many staff or former staff in respect of (i) alleged equal opportunities breaches which do not proceed to tribunal or courts and (ii) equal opportunities breaches which proceeded to tribunals or courts in (1) the current year and (2) the two previous years. [22514]
§ Mr. SoamesThe handling of civilian equal opportunities cases has been delegated to budget holders and agencies. Details of amounts paid and numbers of cases are not all readily available centrally. Information is however available on six cases over the past few years, for which the average payment was about £7,500.
For service personnel, the great majority of such payments relate to compensation for those dismissed on the ground of pregnancy before the services introduced maternity leave in 1990. An average of about £10,000 has been paid to each of 4,615 cases which did not proceed to tribunals, and about £30,000 to each of 320 cases which proceeded to tribunal. Most of this expenditure was made in 1994–95. On service cases other than pregnancy dismissal, not all details are available in the form requested but an average of about £7,000 has been paid in each of about 60 cases, of which three proceeded to tribunal.