Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has a carer's policy for its employees; and what other steps his Department has taken to support employees with caring responsibilities.

DCMS has a Foster Carers’ & Family and Friends Carers’ Leave policy to support employees who care for children under a fostering or family and friends care arrangement. The DCMS Special leave policy sets out the provision and entitlements to paid special leave and unpaid career breaks to support employees. The department has a Flexible working policy in place to support employees’ work-life balance particularly those with caring responsibilities.

DCMS has a Care and Share Network which aims to support employees with caring responsibilities. The network has a dedicated intranet page with information about the monthly events. The intranet also has information about the Carer’s passport which is a Charity for Civil Servants initiative to help civil servants with specific caring responsibilities. It is a toolkit to help line managers and carers record information about how the individual’s responsibilities impact their work with agreed solutions to support the individual.

DCMS employees have access to advice and counselling through the Employee Assistance programme.

DCMS will be adopting the Carers’ Charter being developed by the Civil Service Employee Policy once this is launched.