Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what information their Department holds on the level of staff retention; and what steps they are taking to improve staff retention.

Civil Service turnover in the Department for International Trade (DIT) was 8.1% in 2022/23.

As part of Machinery of Government changes, DIT has since become The Department of Business and Trade (DBT).

As part of the leavers process for DBT each leaver is sent a link to a survey to gather more information around the reasons the individual is leaving, such as career development or better pay and conditions. This narrative is beneficial to inform future policy decisions.

Examples of current activities to support attraction and retention:

• DBT offer a broad range of development opportunities including apprenticeships, trade and business specific learning packages, development programmes (including our internally designed and delivered International Trade Development Programme), interchange and secondments.
• Working within controls, we do as much as possible to ensure that we have an attractive employee pay and benefits package and take steps to deliver annual pay awards at both delegated and SCS grades that align to central guidance. To support employee recognition and engagement, we have a DBT in-year award scheme to provide cash/voucher awards to recognise key achievements.
• We analyse the department's annual Civil Service People Survey results which have specific questions linked to employee retention and each year create an action plan that responds to feedback from the survey.
• We are currently working on our People Strategy which will take us to 2028 and one of the objectives within it is retention and engagement.