HC Deb 24 March 1999 vol 328 c231W
Mr. McDonnell

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the appraisal performance markings awarded to civil servants in 1998 for(a) each agency in his Department and (b) the Department broken down by (i) grade, (ii) gender, (iii) ethnicity, (iv) part-time/full-time working and (v) disability; and for (1) each agency and (2) the Department whether the Cabinet Office's four fifths rule for detecting potential adverse impact was applied to the appraisal markings of civil servants in the 1998 report round. [78149]

Mr. Straw

The available information has been placed in the Library and is set out as follows:

Table 1: performance appraisal markings for the Home Office including the United Kingdom Passport Agency and the Forensic Science Service (but excluding the Prison Service and the Fire Service College which have different appraisal systems) for the reporting year 1996–97 broken down by grade, ethnicity and gender. Information on part-time/full-time working could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Table 2: performance appraisal markings for the Fire Service College in 1998 broken down by gender and part-time/full-time working. There were no ethnic minority or disabled staff working at the College in this period. The total number of staff working at the College is small and to provide figures broken down by grade would risk identifying individuals.

Table 3: performance appraisal markings for the Prison Service in 1998 broken down by gender and ethnicity. Information on part-time/full-time working is not held centrally in the Prison Service and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Table 4: performance appraisal markings for the Prison Service in 1998 broken down by the core grades. (There are many non-standard specialist grades with small numbers of staff in the Prison Service and to provide information broken down by these grades would risk identifying individuals).

Table 5: performance appraisal markings for the Home Office including the United Kingdom Passport Agency and the Forensic Science Service (but excluding the Prison Service and the Fire Service College) for the reporting year 1996–97 showing the spread of box markings among disabled and non-disabled staff.

The four-fifths rule—which is only a guideline, not a statistical test—was not applied to these appraisal markings.

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