Departmental Staff

Mr. Khan
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when and how he plans to publish the disability equality scheme for his Department and in what formats.

Mr. Byrne
The Home Office Disability Equality Scheme will be published on 4 December 2006 in compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. It is intended that the scheme will be produced in electronic Word and PDF documents online. It will be available in large print and Braille.

Mr. Khan
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what methods are used to involve disabled people in the production of his Department’s disability equality scheme.

Mr. Byrne
Focus groups, meetings, seminars and conferences have been used to involve disabled people in drafting the scheme. The Home Office has sought to involve individual disabled members of staff, disabled staff networks and external disabled organisations wherever possible. The stakeholders will be invited to comment on the scheme before its publication on 4 December.

Susan Kramer
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many disabled people were hired by his Department in each of the last five years for which figures are available; what percentage of the overall work force these figures represented in each year; and how many disabled people left their employment in his Department over the same period.

Mr. Byrne
Home Office data for 2003, 2004 and 2005 are published along with other Government Departments and are available in the Library of the House or online at the Cabinet Office website: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/management/statistics/reports/index.asp

Figures for 2000-02 are not available without incurring disproportionate costs.

Figures for 2006 at the civil service wide level will be available from Cabinet Office in 2007.

Disability status is self-declared and voluntary.