Departmental Staff (Ethnic Origin)

Mr. Vaz
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide a breakdown, in numerical and percentage terms, of the ethnic origin, at 1 March, of (a) his private office, (b) Government special advisers, (c) his Policy Unit and (d) staff in total. [78508]-------------------------------
|Benefit                      |
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|Widow's payment              |
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|Income Support—Capital limits||||||
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|Lower                        |
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|Upper                        |
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|Child's                      |
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|Family Credit—Capital limits5||||||
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|Lower                        |
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|Upper                        |
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|Child's                      |
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|Income Support               |
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|Earnings                     |
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|Disregard3                   |
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|Housing Benefit              |
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Mr. Timms
Information on the ethnic origin of civil servants is collected using a voluntary, confidential questionnaire. The number and percentage of ethnic minority staff in Ministers' private offices in this Department are set out in the table.----------------
|              |
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|Private Office|
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Note:

The number of staff is based on the number of respondents.

For information on staff total, my right hon. Friend, the Minister for the Cabinet Office will be providing a central response. For information on special advisers, I refer my hon. Friend to the written answer my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) on 22 February 1999, Official Report, column 39.