Question

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to disaggregate data collection in Government Departments in relation to Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities.

The Office for Equality and Opportunity encourages the use of Government Statistical Service harmonised standards for ethnicity data collection across government departments and other public bodies.

The current ethnicity harmonised standard is based on the 2011 Census questions across the UK. The ethnicity questions were adjusted so they could be used in the 2021 censuses for England and Wales, and Northern Ireland; and the 2022 Census for Scotland.

The 2021 classification for England and Wales has 19 groups including the categories ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ and ‘Roma’. (https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/ethnicity-harmonised-standard/).

Data collected by government departments for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups is already published on the Office for Equality and Opportunity’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures website (https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/). It was the first of its kind in terms of scale, scope and transparency and has been welcomed as best practice internationally. It contains statistics covering topics such as health, education, employment and the criminal justice system.