Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Prime Minister's speech, Together, let’s make a difference, delivered on 18 October 2018, what progress the Government has made on improving representation of people from BAME backgrounds in the civil service.

The Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy published in October 2017 included a

commitment to increase the representation of ethnic minority staff in the Civil Service

workforce. In June 2017 we published a Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion data

dashboard [add link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-diversity-

inclusion-dashboard]

Latest figures (March 2018) show ethnic minority representation in the Civil Service has

risen to 12.0% which is broadly representative of the UK working population (12.8%).

Ethnic minority representation in the Senior Civil Service (SCS) also reached its highest

level to date at 5.2%. We are committed to improving this and have published targets to

increase the progression of ethnic minority staff into the SCS.

To drive delivery of the targets we have established an Ethnic Diversity Programme to

build a sustainable talent pipeline to the SCS. The Programme also supports the new

Diverse Leadership Taskforce to increase diversity amongst our most senior leaders.