Tom Watson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-02-25.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to increase the number of public appointments of women in the last three months.
Matthew Hancock
The Government is committed to increasing the diversity of public appointments and has an aspiration that 50% of new public appointees should be women. We are making good progress, with 44% of new appointments made to women in 2014-2015 and a higher proportion of all public appointments (new appointments and reappointments) went to women last year than at any other point previously recorded.
The Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office supports departments on all issues relating to the diversity of public appointments. Steps we are taking to increase diversity include streamlining the application process, placing an emphasis on ability over previous experience, and increasing awareness of opportunities by using a central website, social media.
I hosted an event in February for a variety of diversity networks to encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply for Public Appointments and to advertise them in their own networks. The Cabinet Office is also represented at events run by diversity networks to raise awareness of the opportunities available.
