Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department operates a ban the box employment policy in respect of ex-offender job applicants with unspent convictions; and how many employees of her Department have unspent convictions.

DCMS is committed to offering all applicants equality of opportunity to ensure that we attract and retain candidates with the most talent and potential. To this end, the DCMS recruitment process does not require applicants to declare unspent criminal convictions at the initial recruitment stage. Applicants are asked to declare unspent criminal convictions as part of basic employment checks when a provisional offer of employment has been made. Decisions concerning appointment to a post where an individual has a conviction history are made on a case-by-case basis.

The department does not retain details centrally that would allow us to identify employees with unspent convictions so the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.