From House of Commons Hansard
Written Answers: 3rd November 2005

Home Office

3 Nov 2005 : Column 1253W

Equality and Diversity

David T.C. Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much the Department has spent promoting equality and diversity in each of the last five years for which figures are available. [14663]

Mr. Charles Clarke: The Home Office is fully committed to the equality and diversity agenda and has policies and processes in place to ensure that there is no unfair discrimination on any grounds. The Department actively promotes the equality and diversity agenda in developing policies on its range of public responsibilities and in its treatment of its staff. The information provided for the Home Office covers the core directorates and devolved areas including the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, HM Prison Service and UK Passport Service.

Home Office policy and processes on promoting equality and diversity

Key examples of the range of work done by the Home Office in promoting equality and diversity since 2000 are as follows:

Setting by Ministers and regular monitoring of race employment targets for the Home Office and its public services (i.e. police service, Prison Service, national probation service).

Ongoing provision of Race Equality Grants funding which promote race equality community and give ethnic minority communities more access and influence on policy makers and service providers.

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Support for staff on the Cabinet Office Pathways scheme for ethnic minority staff and the Disability Bursary Scheme.

Establishment and funding of staff networks supporting black and ethnic minority staff, disabled staff and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and transsexual members of staff.

Annual involvement in the National Mentoring Consortium to help support undergraduate minority ethnic staff in gaining employment after graduation.

Regular reviews of work-life balance policies and introduction of different working patterns for staff that includes part-time working, job-sharing, home-working and compressed hours schemes. Provision of child care options, including in 2005 the launch of the Childcare Voucher Scheme. In 2000–01 a mandatory Diversity Awareness Training Programme in the core Home Office took place which reached nearly 3,000 staff.

Positive action training for women, black and minority ethnic staff and disabled staff held in 2001.

An annual diversity week of events to promote diversity issues to Home Office staff since 2002.

A dedicated step by step guide on race impact assessment for use by Home Office staff was launched in July 2004.

In January 2005, the Home Secretary launched “Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society: The Government’s Strategy to Increase Race Equality and Community Cohesion” which sets out one strand of the Government’s overall drive to improve fairness and opportunities for all in Britain.

Publication of the review of the Home Office Race Equality Scheme in May 2005.

In July 2004, the Home Office launched a Group-wide five Year Race and Diversity Programme as endorsed by the Department’s Group Executive Board. The programme’s aims are to develop a representative work force at all levels (including the Senior civil service), improve the public perception of fairness in Home Office policies, drive out prejudicial attitudes and behaviours and improve the diversity of staff. A range of projects have been introduced under its three work strands: ownership and leadership; people management; and, business management. These include:

Publishing checklists that set out what is expected of senior leaders, line managers and staff.

Testing for inappropriate behaviour during the 2005 senior management promotion exercises.

Launching a new form that introduced monitoring on sexual orientation, gender identity, religion and belief for HR processes, and for the Home Office to identify, investigate and take positive action to address any disparities in the outcomes for under-represented groups in its work force.

Launching a four level “Development Plus” programme to provide positive action development for Home Office staff, targeting under-represented groups.

Introducing a pilot mentoring scheme for staff in under-represented groups.

Implementing a Disability Action Plan, including a review of the use Disability (Two Ticks) symbol.

Compulsory diversity awareness training for staff at all levels in the core Home Office, Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) and Prison Service during 2005.

IND’s development of its own Diversity Action Plan “Towards 2010’ as an integrated strategy on diversity across IND leadership, staff management and business delivery areas.

Prison Service’s ongoing work on developing a range of leaflets setting out the responsibilities and rights of staff and prisoners under equal opportunities legislation.

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Financial expenditure on promoting equality and diversity

The following table sets out the Department's estimated annual expenditure (where available) on promoting the equality and diversity agenda between 2000–05.

⁽³⁾ 2000–01—The figure excludes figures for Prison Service which are not available.

The rise in expenditure during the period 2000 to 2002 represents an increase in the Department’s overall commitment to diversity initiatives and also takes account of new directorates which received funding to promote diversity and equality.

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