§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many(a) civil servants and (b) other staff of each grade are working for or, as members of, the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in each location at which such work is carried out; how many of the staff at each grade are from (i) the United Kingdom civil service, (ii) the Northern Ireland civil service and (iii) elsewhere; and, of the Northern Ireland civil service staff, how many in total and of each grade have been categorised under fair employment legislation as (1) Protestant, (2) Roman Catholic and (3) other.
§ Sir John WheelerThe Anglo-Irish Secretariat functions from one location and the British side of the secretariat employs 12 civil servants, two of whom are from the Northern Ireland civil service. For reasons of personal security it would not be appropriate to list the posts by grade.
The use of community backing monitoring information in the Northern Ireland Office is governed by a code of practice, under which the information can be used only for the purposes of monitoring the effectiveness of the Department's policy on equality of opportunity and to meet statutory requirements under fair employment legislation. The detail sought would be contrary to the code of practice, and could contravene the confidentiality requirements contained in regulations under the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1989.