Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will provide a list of (a) professional staff networks and (b) social clubs operating within his Department; and if he will provide the (i) budgets and (ii) FTE staff time allocated to each group within each of the last three years.

We have the following professional staff networks and social clubs operating within the Department:

• Age Diversity Network
• Carers’ Network
• Disability Network (including Dyslexia and Neurodiversity)
• Chronic Pain Network
• Fatigue Network
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Network
• Stammering Network
• Working through cancer network
• Faith and belief network
• Women’s Network
• Job Share Network
• Parental Leave Buddy Network
• Solo Parents’ Network
• Work Life Balance Network (WLBN)
• Male Allyship Network
• Ethnic Minority Network (EMN)
• EU Nationals Network
• Respect at work
• Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination Support Network
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Asexual and Transgender Network (LGBA&T)
• Social Mobility Network
• Mental Health Network
• Sports and social association
• Professions Network - groups of individuals with common skills, experience and expertise
• Sustainability network; and
• Civil Service Retirement Fellowship

Budgets are not officially allocated at such low levels. Each year we allocate £20,000 to the EDI Networks, which is distributed according to need. We are unable to provide details of these allocations.

Due to ad hoc membership, we are unable to provide details of the number of staff time allocated to each network.