Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps they have taken to operate a disability confident scheme for those seeking promotion in their Department; and how many and what proportion of those candidates who declared themselves as having a disability and who applied under the scheme were (a) interviewed and (b) promoted in (i) 2021 and (ii) 2022.

As the Ministerial Disability Champion for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), I am proud to lead on ensuring the department delivers our commitments to disabled people , removing the barriers disabled people face and putting disability at the heart of government decision making.

DLUHC operate the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS) for all campaigns advertised on Civil Service Jobs. The scheme is designed to give employers the skills, techniques and confidence they need to recruit, retain and develop disabled staff. All Disability Confident Scheme applicants who meet the minimum standard for DLUHC campaigns are invited to attend interview.

DLUHC demographic data for applicants is deliberately anonymised so this cannot be used to identify candidates. We are therefore unable to differentiate between candidate types such as those applying on promotion or lateral transfer from within the department. As such, we have provided the success rates of all candidates who declared themselves as having a disability for financial years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.

2020-2021

2693 candidates declared a disability at application stage and submitted a full application. This was equal to 11% of all applications received.

485 of 2693 candidates were invited to interview. This was equal to 18% of applications received for those who declared a disability.

77 of 485 candidates invited to interview were successful and offered a role. This was equal to 16% of candidates invited to attend interview who declared a disability.

2021-2022

1680 candidates declared a disability at application stage and submitted a full application. This was equal to 12% of all applications received.

517 of 1680 candidates were invited to interview. This was equal to 31% of applications received for those who declared a disability.

87 of 517 candidates invited to interview were successful and offered a role. This was equal to 17% of candidates invited to attend interview who declared a disability.