§ Ms. Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is (a) the proportion of working time allocated to his departmental equal opportunities officer for equal opportunities duties, (b) the other duties carried out by the departmental equal opportunities officer, (c) the proportion, and the amount, of the departmental budget allocated to equal opportunities work, (d) the number of occasions when the departmental equal opportunities officer meets equal opportunities officers from other Government Departments each year, (e) the guidelines issued to departmental training officers and equal opportunities officers to promote the use of section 47 of the Sex Discrimination Act and (f) what action has been taken to facilitate job share, part-time working and parental leave.
§ Mr. Ridley(a) My Department has two equal opportunities officers, one for the central part of the Department (shared with the Department of Transport) and one for the Property Services Agency. Both are grade 5 heads of division. No specific proportion of their time is allocated to any of their functions. They are supported by six staff who work full-time on equal opportunities matters and have no other responsibilities.
(b) The equal opportunities officers themselves have wide ranging responsibilities for personnel management policies and services to staff.
(c) Every member of staff with management responsibilities is involved in the implementation of equal opportunities policy. It is not possible to assign a specific cost to the work.
(d) The equal opportunities officers and their staff have frequent meetings, both formal and informal, with their counterparts from other Government Departments.
(e) No specific guidelines have been issued.
(f) All requests for part-time working and job sharing are met wherever possible. Special leave arrangements exist to help staff deal with domestic responsibilities. Explanatory material has been published and made available to all staff.