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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ashton of Hyde on 2 March (HL5547), how many (1) female candidates, and (2) candidates from a BAME background, were appointed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in the first three quarters of 2016–17; and what are the proportions of (a) women, (b) BAME people, and (c) people with disabilities, employed by those parts of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport covered by its Departmental Plan.

From 1st April 2016 to 31st December 2016, there were 131 new starters in the department. Of these:

1. 65 were female

2. 13 were from a BAME background*

On 1st February 2017, the proportion of people actively declaring as each of the following protected characteristics was:

a) Female: 51%

b) BAME: 13%

c) Disabled: 5%

The figures above include permanent and fixed term employees as well as loans/secondments in to the department and employees on paid maternity leave.

* It should be noted that among the 131 new starters there is an ethnicity declaration rate of 47%. That is, of the 61 DCMS starters who have actively declared their ethnicity, 13 were from a BAME background.