§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Solicitor-General if she will make a statement on the extent of job sharing in her Department. [41045]
§ The Solicitor-General[holding answer 11 March 2002]: In my Department, the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers, there are currently no members of staff who job share.
In the Departments for which the Attorney-General is responsible, details are as follows:
Crown Prosecution Service
There are currently 14 members of staff who are job-sharing in the Department: 10 administrators/caseworkers and four lawyers.
Treasury Solicitor's Department
The Treasury Solicitor's Department strongly encourages job sharing. In the last year there have been four job share partnerships, two of which recently came to an end. Currently there is one legal and one administrative job share partnership in the Department.
Regular meetings are held to encourage those people who wish to work part time, to raise issues common to part timers and to promote the job sharing policy.
On recruitment, the Department will offer a person the opportunity of working part time or job sharing. The normal presumption is that any post can be job shared.
Serious Fraud Office
The Serious Fraud Office offers permanent staff the option to job share; however, at present none of the Department's staff has opted to do so.
9WIn December 2001 the Serious Fraud Office introduced a range of flexible working arrangements for staff, including the option to job share. The purpose in doing so was (i) to offer staff more family friendly options and thus improve morale and motivation (ii) to improve the recruitment and retention position and (iii) to promote Government policies.