HC Deb 06 February 1984 vol 53 c418W
Mr. Janner

asked the Attorney-General when he or the Lord Chancellor last carried out an analysis of information required for sex monitoring of their Departments.

The Attorney-General

The Lord Chancellor's Department monitors the staff between the male and female components monthly and most recently the Department analysed data on the employment of women in September 1981. Future monitoring and analysis will take place as part of the programme of action which the Minister for the Civil Service hopes shortly to announce to follow up the report of the joint review group on employment opportunities for women in the Civil Service.

As part of this programme, joint management and trade unions Whitley machinery will be used departmentally as well as centrally to review data provided in such areas as the incidence of part-time working, including job-sharing where possible, posts restricted to one sex, reinstatements, equal opportunity complaints, promotion by sex and grade, and (where available) attendance at training courses.

The Departments for which I answer — the Law Officers' Department, the Treasury Solicitor's Department and the Department of the Director of Public Prosecutions — are of course much smaller than the Lord Chancellor's Department, but they will also participate in the programme of action.

Complaints under the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts are already notified by Departments annually, and details of single sex posts bi-annually, to the Cabinet Office (management and personnel office), which maintains and analyse central records.