To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what recent progress has been made in improving ethnic minority recruitment into the civil service. [100202]

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on ethnic diversity within the civil service. [100767]

The Government remain strongly committed to a civil service that is fully representative of the community it serves.Ethnic minorities make up 7.9 per cent. of the civil service as a whole and 2.8 per cent. at senior civil service level, up from 5.7 per cent. and 1.6 per cent. respectively in April 1998. Our target for senior civil service level staff is 3.2 per cent. by 2004–5.