Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to introduce a civil service wide socio-economic background census.

Matthew Hancock

On 24 March, we published our 2016 Talent Action Plan for the Civil Service. As well as providing a progress update, it sets out how we will increase social mobility in the Civil Service.

We are making a specific commitment that the Civil Service will lead the way, working with major employers and organisations promoting social mobility, to develop a national set of measures of socio-economic background for employers.

The Civil Service will use these to measure the socio-economic background of its workforce, starting with the Senior Civil Service, the Fast Stream, apprenticeship starts and applicants to our corporate talent programmes.

The 2016 Talent Action Plan is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/talent-action-plan-2016-removing-the-barriers-to-success

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