FURTHER SUPPLEMENTARY MEMORANDUM BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (DF 18)
At the Committee's hearing on 16 May we were
asked to provide further information on how the Department promotes
equal opportunities internally.
DfEE is committed to becoming an organisation
which at all levels reflects, and benefits from, the diversity
of the society it serves. We have embarked on a programme of cultural
change which has equality of opportunity at its heart. It is intended
to create an organisation that is inclusive, not exclusive, and
that attracts and retains women, ethnic minorities and people
with disabilities across all management grades. As part of this
programme, we have committed ourselves to the "modernising
government" targets for the senior Civil Service (SCS) of
35 per cent for women, 3.2 per cent from ethnic minorities and
3 per cent for people with disabilities. We intend to achieve
these targets in fair and open competition by developing internal
staff and through new recruitment, by 2004-05. We have also set
an additional target of 30 per cent of posts with a JESP score
of 13 or above (roughly equivalent to director-level in DfEE)
being filled by women. Six of the last 12 people promoted into
the SCS were women as were two of our recent external recruits.
A breakdown by level as at 1 December 1999 is below.
While the figures for women are relatively encouraging,
we have not yet had comparable success with regard to people from
ethnic minorities or people with disabilities entering the SCS.
However, a DfEE grade 7 from an ethnic minority background was
recently successful in an open competition run by another department
and is now on loan to them as a substantive member of the SCS.
We are making particular efforts to attract suitably qualified
ethnic minority applicants when we recruit from outside or set
up secondments/attachments. With regard to people with disabilities,
we have run numerous events to raise awareness of our responsibilities
towards and awareness of the abilities of people with disabilities.
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