Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if his Department will take steps to ensure that graduates from a working class background are recruited onto the Civil Service Fast Stream.

Matthew Hancock

To govern modern Britain, the Civil Service needs to look and sound likemodern Britain. We need access to the broadest possible pool of talent, drawing on peoplefrom all backgrounds and all parts of the country.

The Civil Service is implementing a number of initiatives to recruit individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds onto the Fast Stream and Fast Track Apprenticeship schemes, including internship programmes, schools and colleges mentoring and discovery days, work experience programmes and engagement with universities with a high representation of lower socio-economic students.

Information on the socio-economic status of recent appointees to the SCS was published in 2014,and the socio-economic status of Fast-Stream applicants has been published since 2011.

In 2015 16.8% of new joiners to the Fast Track Apprenticeship Scheme were from lower socio-economic backgrounds, up from 8.5% in 2013/14. From 2015 this data will be published as part of the Fast Stream applicants publication.