Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were employed by her Department to work on matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusivity in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.

The central Home Office Diversity and Inclusion team in March 2021 employed 23 paid Full Time Equivalents (FTE) and this equated to 23 headcount (HC). For March 2022, it was also 23 paid FTE equating to 23 HC. However, the figures for March 22 include 4 FTE and HC following the move of a team, in the 21/22 financial year, that was originally established outside of the central D&I team to progress the departments race focused priorities in response to the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review.

To obtain information relating to all roles across the Home Office that were in some way linked directly or indirectly to equality, diversity and inclusion matters would require disproportionate effort. Therefore, only staff employed as part of the core departmental D&I team have been included in this response.

These roles are directly focused on the delivery of the departments strategic diversity and inclusion objectives through its policies, processes and practices and also wider government priorities and strategies. This includes Civil Service D&I strategy, Inclusive Britain and the National Disability Strategy. The roles also help the department to ensure it is meeting its statutory obligations in relation to equalities legislation whilst delivering value for money.