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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department uses Office for National Statistics estimates of personal well-being in formulating policy; and what policies her department has introduced to improve personal well-being in the last 12 months.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) wellbeing statistics inform Health and Wellbeing policy across the Civil Service. DCMS measures personal wellbeing through the annual Civil Service People Survey using the same national statistics that the ONS use for the UK population as a whole. The four personal wellbeing questions are: Life Satisfaction, Worthwhile, Happiness, and Anxiety. Further details can be found here. Findings from the survey are used to inform our HR policies and support services. No new policies have been introduced in the last 12 months, but we have focused on improving the wellbeing support and services available to staff. This includes:

• Working alongside our Mental Health and Wellbeing Network to ensure that staff with mental health conditions are supported in managing their conditions. The network has a Senior Civil Servant (SCS) champion who supports, advises and represents the Network at a senior level.
• Increasing the number of Mental Health First Aiders in DCMS from 22 to 32. These champions are trained to provide support and guide people towards appropriate professional help.
• Using external providers such as the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and the HR Casework team to support employee wellbeing. Our HR Casework offer has extended in the past 12 months and now includes both a dedicated line for managers and an ‘Early Resolution Helpline’ for all employees to discuss work-related issues which may affect wellbeing.
• Providing a health referral process which establishes the requirement for any adjustments for employees suffering from a mental health or physical condition. Individuals are then directed to the most appropriate provider for support.
• Launching a Menopause group as part of our Women’s network.
• Running a series of sessions on wellbeing and resilience in the workplace as part of ‘DCMS Live’, a week of interactive learning which is available to all staff.
• Redesigning the internal DCMS intranet pages for health and wellbeing to ensure it remains clear and accessible to all.
• Using induction materials to signpost new starters to the resources available to them to support their wellbeing.
• Mandating ‘Wellbeing Confident’ training for all SCS (based on the PERMA model using positive psychology techniques) which has equipped senior leaders with tools to have open discussions about mental health and wellbeing within their teams; and delivering team based sessions across the Department to embed this.