Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether their Department has run any (a) recruitment and (b) internship schemes aimed to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups in the workforce in the last year.

The Department has not run any recruitment with the sole aim of increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups in the workforce in the last year.

The Department has not run any internship schemes but has participated in the following internship schemes, to deliver greater diversity in the Civil Service and make it more representative of the people it serves, in the past 12 months:

• the Care Leavers Internship Programme, ran by the Department for Education, which offers cave-experienced people between the ages of 18 and 30 years old a placement in Government departments, supporting the Government’s commitment to social mobility;
• the Summer Internship Programme, ran by the Cabinet Office, which offers candidates from lower socio-economic backgrounds a temporary placement in Government departments to provide an opportunity to experience what it feels like to work in the Civil Service; and
• the Autism Exchange Internship Programme, ran by the Cabinet Office, which offers summer internships to autistic young people and aims to provide valuable work experience and skills to participants, while also helping Government departments better understand and support autistic employees.