Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that internships are accessible to people from all backgrounds.

The Civil Service offers a range of internship opportunities. A substantial number of these internships are accessed through positive action schemes, permitted by the Equality Act 2010, to alleviate disadvantage experienced by people from certain groups and to improve their representation.

The Summer Diversity Internship and Early Diversity Internship Programmes, for example, are targeted at BAME, lower socio-economic and disabled groups because they are currently under-represented in the Fast Stream graduate programme. We will continue to prioritise these under-represented groups and consider such schemes to be appropriate initiatives to help increase awareness of the Civil Service and ultimately lead to increased numbers of successful applications to the Fast Stream.

Other internships, not diversity specific, are run but tend to be overseen by specific departments or specialisms, such as the annual FCO internship programme and the Government Economic Service Summer Vacation Placement Scheme.

All recruitment for permanent positions conforms to the Civil Service Commission Principles of fair and open selection, based on merit.