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Security Services: Equality

Volume 489: debated on Tuesday 10 March 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what proportion of (a) field-based and (b) office-based Security Service officers were of each (a) ethnicity, (b) religious faith and (c) sex in each year since 2001. (258552)

The available information on ethnicity and gender is provided in the following table. Similar information by religious faith is not available. The Security Service does not record such information differentiating between field-based and office-based staff.

GenderEthnicity

Numbers of females

Percentage of females

Numbers of black minority ethnic

Percentage of black minority ethnic

2001

882

46.4

62

3.3

2002

902

46.4

72

3.6

2003

993

47.4

83

4.0

2004

1,061

47.6

103

4.6

2005

1,107

46.5

116

4.9

2006

1,156

44.5

158

6.1

2007

1,260

43.9

189

6.6

2008

1,386

41.9

227

6.9

2009

1,454

41.8

237

6.8

Note:

All figures are as at 1 April, except 2009 which is as at 1 January. In line with Whitehall practice, ethnic monitoring is carried out on the basis of self declaration and is calculated as a percentage of those declaring ethnic origin—the response rate is around 98 per cent.