To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2020 to Question 121217 on Prison and Probation Service: Labour Turnover, what assessment he has made of which factors contribute towards the (a) lower promotion rate among Black staff and (b) higher leaving rates among Asian and other ethnic minority staff.

We are working on building a broad talent base within HMPPS, where we attract and retain high-quality, passionate people from diverse backgrounds.

While the data from Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) annual staff equalities report 2019/2020 shows that the leaving rate for BAME staff is higher than that of White staff, the gap has closed for promotion rates for the same groups. This is in part due to initiatives such as diverse interview panels and mentoring.

HMPPS recognises that further work is needed to improve the data and understand the contributing factors to staff leaving the agency or not progressing. The Race Action Programme will utilise data to identify areas for improvement and where data meets the statistical thresholds, staff previously grouped as Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) to aid consistency with other government departments, will be disaggregated to provide greater insight.

HM Prison and Probation Service annual staff equalities report 2019/2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hm-prison-and-probation-service-annual-staff-equalities-report-2019-to-2020