Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in her Department reported their religion as Islam in the latest period for which figures are available; what the reported ethnicity of those staff was; and how many of those staff were employed at each grade.

The Civil Service Workforce Plan 2016-2020 set out the ambition for the Civil Service to become the most inclusive employer in the UK. We are already working towards this ambition and are embedding the commitments within Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: A Brilliant Civil Service: becoming the UK’s most inclusive employer, within our day-to-day working practices with all our customers, colleagues and partners. This includes a commitment to focus on faith and belief as part of our wider approach to inclusion.

DWP encourages all of its employees to provide details of their personal diversity information, however this action is voluntary and therefore we do not hold a complete picture of our workforce representation.

As at 30 September 2019, 46.2% of our workforce have positively shared their religious belief information, and 83.7% have shared information on their ethnicity. Due to the different reporting levels caution should be taken when drawing conclusions from this data.

Information has been provided using the 2011 Census in England and Wales 5 broad categories commonly referred to as ONS 5+1 (2011)

* in line with Office of National Statistics guidance, the data has been suppressed where less than 5 people have contributed a response.