Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of Senior Civil Service roles are occupied by people from BME backgrounds.

In 2015, the proportion of senior civil servants from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds was 4.1%; and the proportion of the whole civil service workforce from BAME background was 10.6% as I set out in my recent speech https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/addressing-inequality-in-the-public-sector-and-beyond-matt-hancock-speech.

While BAME representation throughout the civil service workforce is consistent with the economically active population, in order for the civil service to reflect diversity of Modern Britain we need to do more to increase BAME representation in the senior civil service. We have increased capacity of summer diversity internships and the Positive Action Pathway programme and will soon launch ‘Accelerate’ (a development programme for SCS from BAME backgrounds to reach the most senior grades within the Civil Service). We anticipate that over time these and other initiatives will result in an increase in the proportion of the SCS coming from BAME backgrounds.

The proportion of applicants and appointments from BME backgrounds to the Civil Service Fast Stream from 2012 to 2014 are listed in the table below.

Data on the 2015 cohort is due to be released later this year in the 2015 Fast Stream Annual Report.