Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2016 to Question 39321, on Civil Service recruitment, what assessment he has made of the effect of the geographical focus on London of fast stream recruitment on his Department’s plans to diversify the civil service.

Matthew Hancock

Research undertaken within the Civil Service (by the Bridge Group in 2015/16) and externally (e.g. by Trendence in 2015) shows that lower socio-economic applicants are potentially more likely to be less mobile and less willing to move to London.

A dedicated new assessment centre will open in Newcastle in Autumn 2016. From Autumn 2017 we intend to regionalise further, introducing ‘pop up’ centres in support of our fixed assessment locations.

Beyond the assessment process, we also require all centrally managed Fast Streamers to undertake a regional place.