Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Anna Turley and Lindsay Hoyle(2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister without Portfolio (Anna Turley)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
This Government’s aim is to recruit the brightest and best talent into the civil service—brilliant people from across the UK with the skills to deliver the priorities of the British people. We have already taken steps to improve recruitment, with the first ever cross-Government standardised recruitment processes and benchmarks, to strengthen accountability and bring faster, higher-quality and more inclusive recruitment. Fast, fair, inclusive: that is our recruitment vision.
Anna Turley
The fast stream programme, of which I am proud to be a graduate, is the No. 1 graduate employee scheme in the country. We are proud that we have had over 70,000 applicants for just 754 appointments. We know that we have done very well in increasing diversity, with applications from ethnic minority candidates, women and people with disabilities, but we are falling short in applications from those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. I make no apologies about taking proactive decisions to ensure that people who do not necessarily have the same social capital or relationship strength as those from other higher social backgrounds can take internships. The number of working-class people in the civil service is three times smaller than the broader UK workforce, and we are taking action on that.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
Last year, the Government promised us that they were going to slash the size of the civil service, but instead the latest figures showed that the size of the civil service has increased by 7,000 compared with last year. It is not only other Departments that have failed to get a grip: the headcount of the Minister’s own Department is up by 7%. Will the Minister guarantee that when the next set of figures is published, it will show a reduction in the size of the civil service and the size of the Cabinet Office?