Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to close the acceptance gap between white students and ethnic minority students who join the Civil Service Fast Stream.

The proportion of ethnic minority groups overall being appointed to the Civil Service Fast Stream in 2021 was 23.3%, this aligns with the 2019/20 Higher Education Statistics Agency graduate population level of 23.7% for ethnicity.

Steps to ensure that students from minority ethnic backgrounds are successful in their application to the Civil Service Fast Stream start with outreach, attraction and marketing activity, which is designed to encourage applications from individuals from all backgrounds and locations. This is undertaken via early stage schools, college and apprenticeship engagement, along with industrial and internship placements. We have developed an inclusive website, social media strategy, and refreshed the target university list for outreach.

Further to this, the Cabinet Office is:

• expanding the range of internships we offer,

• undertaking cultural bias reviews of our selection processes,

• increasing assessor diversity, and

• improving our fair and inclusive selection processes by incorporating more regional/virtual assessment.