To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what recent estimate he has made of the number of Black and ethnic minority staff employed in his Department.

To effectively collate and capture diversity data, the department encourages staff to complete a diversity declaration questionnaire. The HR team regularly analyses this data. Current data held suggests 2.5% of staff have declared to be from a Black and ethinc minority background. 35% of staff have not declared their background and 2% have stated “Prefer not to say”. These figures are based on 92 staff members completing their diversity data, out of a total of 164.