§ Mr. McDonnellTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to include Irish as a category in his Department's ethnic monitoring of staff recruitment. [63876]
§ Mr. Dewar[holding answer 11 January 1999]: The over-riding principle of Civil Service recruitment procedures is that they should be fair, and selection should be on merit at each stage.
Monitoring in this area is based on ethnic origin and not nationality. The nine ethnic minority origin categories monitored by my Department are based on those used in the 1991 census, which did not include an Irish category. They will be reviewed in the light of any suggested changes for the 2001 census.