Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Prime Minister's comments on equality in the Guardian newspaper on 26 October 2015, how many graduate employers the Government approached to ask them to pledge to anonymise job applications; how many such requests were (a) accepted and (b) rejected; and which graduate employers (i) accepted and (ii) rejected those offers.

The information requested is not collected or held centrally for this question as our approach is to role model best practice and encourage employers to adopt this practice.

A range of organisations from across the public and private sector, together responsible for employing 1.8 million people in the UK, have ​signed up to the pledge to operate recruitment on ‘name blind’ basis to address discrimination.

In October a number of organisations from across the public and private sector attended a roundtable at Downing Street ​to discuss this issue. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-time-to-end-discrimination-and-finish-the-fight-for-real-equality

The Civil Service has adopted this as their default position for all external recruitment, including for graduate​s.​Other graduate recruiters who have committed to or are already delivering name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles include ​KPMG, HSBC, Deloitte, Virgin Money, BBC, NHS, learn-direct​​, teach first and local government.​

We are continuing to encourage this practice across the public sector and beyond.