The dashboard, which is scheduled to appear quarterly, provides a round up of data on diversity. The overall representation of women in the civil service has remained above 50% since 2010. Latest figures show that 53.9% of civil servants are women, 11.6% are ethnic minorities and 9.9% are disabled.

Ethnic minority and disabled staff are still slightly underrepresented compared to the wider working population (12.3% of the UK’s working population were from ethnic minorities and 12.7% were disabled as at March 2018), but their representation has increased since 2010, when 9.2% of civil servants were ethnic minorities and 7.6% were disabled.

Civil servants who are disabled, from an ethnic minority background or a woman are more likely to be in more junior roles, but the proportion in more senior roles has been increasing since 2010. In Grades 6 and 7 - the feeder grades for the senior civil service - the proportion of disabled staff has risen from 4.9% to 7% since 2010, and the proportion of staff who are ethnic minorities has gone from 6.9% to 8.7%.

HMRC reports that 55.3% of its employees are female, above the civil service average. However the analysis also looked at the representation of women in senior roles.

Latest data show that 43.1% of senior civil servants are women, an all time high and an increase from 1996, when the figure was only 16.7%.  In 2016-17, 49% of newly appointed senior civil servants were women, including 53% of internal promotions.

Women now make up at least half of senior civil servants in four departments - Department for Education; Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government; and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; but only 27% of those in the Ministry of Defence. HMRC is slightly behind the curve, with 45.7% of its senior positions held by women.

The government has also published guidance on measuring socio-economic background in the workforce, recommending that employers use four measures relating to parental qualifications; parental occupation; type of school attended and eligibility for free school meals. The civil service also uses a fifth measure: self-assessment of socio-economic background.

The guidance offers recommended wording for these measures, and also set out points that employers need to make clear to staff. These are that data are collected on a voluntary basis and; ○ are analysed at an aggregate level, so individuals’ responses cannot be identified.

Employers should also make sure staff understand that data derived from the measures do not influence individual recruitment and promotion decisions - these should always be on merit.

The civil service diversity inclusion dashboard is here.

Guidance on measuring socio-economic background is here.

Report by Pat Sweet