Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the Places for Growth programme on (a) civil servants with protected characteristics and (b) non-departmental public body staff with protected characteristics.
The Government has committed to relocating 22,000 roles from London across the UK, ensuring the Civil Service is representative of the communities it serves, bringing more diversity of thought into policy-making. The Places for Growth portfolio is at the heart of delivering this agenda.
Places for Growth has adopted an approach that is aimed to capture the broadest view of diversity and inclusion, whilst considering the characteristics protected under law. The portfolio is committed to ensuring that the focus of the portfolio and departments is much wider and remains committed to greater socioeconomic diversity, greater regional diversity and to create clusters and critical mass where we can effectively harness cognitive diversity to enable decision making.