Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what (a) the role and (b) cost to the public purse is of his Department's director of diversity and inclusion.

The senior leadership of the Ministry of Defence (MOD), military and civilian, is committed to improving Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) across the Department. We know we are not sufficiently diverse, not yet reflecting the society we defend and serve, and we are determined to deliver tangible progress at pace. The Department has recently set Levels of Ambition for D&I, backed by action plans that will be regularly assured and reported on. There is a palpable energy for change, from across Defence personnel, and to harness this and create real momentum we have directed that D&I will be a high-priority programme, taken forward on a sustained and enduring basis, across the whole of Defence. To lead this exciting agenda, we are seeking to appoint a senior D&I professional as Director and Senior Responsible Officer.

The successful candidate will develop and deliver the Department’s D&I Plan and will hold our Executive Committee to account, putting the Department’s D&I work on a programmatic footing in order to make an enduring step change in momentum and drive actions at all levels to bring about substantive improvements for the whole MOD workforce, both Service and civilian. They will set D&I policy, refresh D&I strategy and assure delivery against actions plans by Defence, Top Level Budgets, Chiefs and Director Generals, together supporting around 240,000 personnel.

This post attracts a salary of £110,000 and offers a Civil Service pension. However, if the successful candidate is an existing Civil Servant, they will be appointed in line with the Civil Service pay rules meaning if they are taking up post on level transfer they will retain their existing salary. Candidates on promotion will either have their current salary increased by ten per cent or receive the starting salary for a Senior Civil Servant (Pay Band 2) role which is £92,000 (whichever is higher).