Accredited official statistics

Recruitment Diversity Statistics: June 2024

Published 15 August 2024

Applies to England and Wales

Main Findings

The proportion of HMPPS applicants from ethnic minority (excluding white minority) backgrounds accepting a formal offer exceeded the 15.8% target in 6 of the 8 quarters covered in this publication	In the two years to June 2024, 26.8% of Prison Officer and 17.8% of Operational Support Grade (OSG) applicants accepting a formal offer were from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to 19.5% of all HMPPS applicants who accepted a formal offer.
34.8% of HMPPS applicants in the period Q3 2022 to Q2 2024 were from ethnic minority backgrounds	Between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2024, 39.6% of Prison Officer applicants and 34.9% of OSG applicants were from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to 34.8% of all HMPPS candidates.
7.5% percent of applicants in the period covered by this report had declared themselves disabled	For the period covered, 4.5% of Prison Officer applicants and 6.6% of OSG applicants declared themselves as disabled, compared to 7.5% of all HMPPS candidates.
50.5% of the HMPPS applicants in the period Q3 2022 to Q2 2024 were female	For the period covered, 38.3% of Prison Officer applicants and 48.4% of OSG applicants were female.
Among Prison Officer and OSG applicants, there is evidence of a disparity in outcomes when comparing ethnic minority applicants to white applicants	The ethnicity Relative Rate Index (RRI) was 0.56 for Prison Officer applicants and 0.40 for OSG applicants for the two years to June 2024, showing a higher proportion of white applicants progressing through the application process compared to ethnic minority applicants.
There is evidence of a disparity in outcomes when comparing female applicants to male applicants, for Prison Officer and for OSG candidates	The RRI for gender was 0.67 for Prison Officer applicants for the overall period covered by this report, suggesting that the progression of male applicants through the application process was at a higher rate for Prison Officer roles. Conversely, the RRI for gender was 1.24 for OSG applicants for the overall period covered by this report, suggesting that the progression of female applicants through the application process was at a higher rate for OSG roles.
There is evidence of a disparity in outcomes when comparing disabled applicants to non-disabled applicants for Prison Officers, but not for OSGs	The disability RRI was 0.75 for Prison Officer applicants suggesting that the progression of disabled candidates through the application process was at a lower rate than for non-disabled applicants.

Background

• In accordance with the economically active working population of ethnic minorities identified in the Labour Force Survey, HMPPS is committed to achieving a target of 15.8% of all staff recruited being from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background.

• As at 30 June 2024, 14.7% of HMPPS staff who declared their ethnicity were from an ethnic minority background. On the same date, 12.7% of all Public Sector Prisons staff, 24.0% of all Youth Custody Service staff, 13.2% of HQ and Frontline Support staff, and 18.1% of Probation Service staff were from an ethnic minority background.

• HMPPS recruitment campaigns are run in different parts of the country, recruiting from local populations, at different times of the year. It should therefore be expected that the percentage of ethnic minority applicants will fluctuate over time.

• The Lammy review also recommended that new data should be collected and published with a full breakdown by ethnicity. This accredited official statistics in development release sets out to meet that recommendation.

 [^1]: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/lammy-review

As these are accredited official statistics in development, we would welcome feedback as to how useful they are, whether different analysis would be preferable, or any other comments about them. If you wish to send any views you may have about these accredited official statistics in development, please use the contact details at the end of this bulletin.

There are two approaches used in the annex. A cohort approach is used in tables 1-3, covering Prison Officer and OSG campaigns, with the progress of people through all later stages of the recruitment process shown in the quarter the candidate applied in, regardless of when the subsequent stages happened. For example, if a candidate applied in March 2023 their progress would be represented in Q1 2023 in the data tables, even if the later stages happened in Q2 or Q3 2023. This allows the comparison of the proportion of candidates with protected characteristics across each application stage. In tables 4-7, covering all HMPPS recruitment campaigns, a staged approach is used, with each stage of the application processes being recorded in the quarter that it took place even if that is not the same as the quarter of the initial application. This means that the proportion of applicants with protected characteristics in each stage can be compared over time.

Statistics are shown for the following stages of the application process, for campaigns that were run between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2024:

• applications;

• invitations to assessment/interview;

• provisional offers; and

• acceptances of a formal offer.

There is a particular focus on the application process for Prison Officer roles and OSG roles but statistics are presented covering all HMPPS recruitment campaigns in the period.

These accredited official statistics in development are used to monitor and evaluate the diversity of applications and appointments.

The recruitment processes are subject to change and it may not be possible to capture these updates in the data straightaway, which may result in an undercount of candidates at some stages. It is therefore recommended that the statistics in this annex are treated as estimates. The department is transitioning to a new recruitment system and reporting could be temporarily impacted whilst undergoing this change.

For tables 1 to 3, it is important to note that some candidates are still working their way through the recruitment pipeline as of 30 June 2024. Where this is the case, the candidate is not included in this release.

In future releases of these statistics, numbers will be updated to reflect candidates’ progress through the recruitment process. This means that figures shown for the more recent quarters are currently based only on a small proportion of the eventual final data, particularly for the later stages of the process. As the data is updated in future publications there could possibly be changes in the proportions and Relative Rate Index values used to compare the rate of progression between groups. For this reason, the figures for the stages after application for the latest two quarters have not be shown in Tables 2 and 3.

In some campaigns a merit list may be held, whereby candidates who progress from the assessment/interview stage are put onto a waiting list until a suitable vacancy opens up. Where this is the case, a candidate may not be offered a post until sometime after the initial application and assessment/interview stages.

The diversity of candidates is monitored at various stages throughout the recruitment process. To assess the relative levels of progression we examine the progress of all the candidates who have applied for posts on a quarterly basis. Candidates may apply for multiple roles but only one application per candidate per quarter is included in the analysis, and the application that is included is the one that made it furthest through the process.

For the campaigns included in this bulletin we examine the volumes of candidates who have progressed through each of the following stages of the recruitment process:

HMPPS Recruitment Stage	Description
Application	The candidate submits an online application for a role in HMPPS. Depending on the role applied for, there are varying processes to determine if a candidate is invited to an assessment. In the case of Prison Officer recruitment, there are online tests, including mathematical proficiency and situational judgement. For OSG recruitment, a manual sift is performed.
Applicants invited to assessment	All candidates who pass the application stage process will be invited to attend an assessment relating to the role applied for. For Prison Officer candidates, the assessment day consists of a literacy and language test, role-playing tests with actors playing the part of prisoners, and retake of the situational judgement and mathematical skills test. For OSG candidates, an interview is conducted.
Applicant made provisional offer	Candidates who have been made a provisional offer will now undergo pre-employment checks including security vetting. For Prison Officer candidates, a fitness test will be carried out between the awarding of a provisional offer and formal offer.
Applicant accepts formal offer	Candidate has confirmed acceptance of Formal Offer and this has been recorded on the recruitment system.

Representation percentages

Within the bulletin, representation percentages are presented for the following stages of the recruitment process:

• Initial applications;

• invitations to assessment/interview;

• provisional offers; and

• acceptances of formal offer.

The diversity statistics in this report are based on self-declared information that applicants have provided on the Oleeo recruitment system. Completion of the data on Oleeo is voluntary, and the information is not considered during the recruitment process. The declaration rates are typically high at above 98 per cent. Some applicants choose not to declare their ethnicity, disability status or gender, or do not complete the information – these applicants are grouped together and included in the ‘Unknown’ group. As this is not a meaningful category those who do not declare their information are not included within the analysis.

The declaration rate is calculated as the total number of valid declarations divided by the total number of cases. Where the declaration rate of a diversity characteristic is in excess of 60 per cent, the representation rate is also presented; this is calculated as the known declarations from the particular group divided by the total number of valid declarations of the characteristic. This represents the best estimate of the true level of representation among all candidates. To date, declaration rates in this data have far exceeded the 60 per cent threshold to allow us to present representation percentages for every stage in the recruitment process. However, it should be noted that for some campaigns in some quarters, the numbers involved can be very small and so any interpretation of them should be treated with caution. In addition, where there are two or fewer individuals in a cell in the accompanying Excel tables, these values have been suppressed to avoid disclosure. Similarly, any value that would allow the derivation of a value of two or lower has also been suppressed.

Representation percentages allow comparison of the diversity proportions at the various recruitment stages outlined above. This is particularly useful for the application stage, as it provides a picture of the diversity of the pool of applicants, and how closely they represent the general population, or the diverse make-up of a local population where a Prison Officer and OSG recruitment campaign is localised to a particular geographic area. It is also particularly useful at the formal offer stage to illustrate any differences in the diversity proportions at the final stage. However, representation among those receiving a formal offer reflects both the representation among applicants and rates of progression for each group at the preceding stages.

To make valid comparisons across time or across different groups requires a measure of disparity of outcomes on a standard scale. This standardised measure of disparity of outcomes is described as the Relative Rate Index (RRI).

In this annex, RRI is calculated by looking at the number of applicants reaching each stage and comparing the levels by the applicants’ characteristics. This calculation does not take into account the reason for applicants not progressing throughout the application stages, therefore applicants that voluntarily withdraw from the process are recorded in the same way as applicants that do not successfully progress. This means that the RRI figures are not only representative of the success of candidates at each stage but can also be influenced by characteristic differences in the voluntary withdrawal rates of applicants.

Further details on the RRI can be found in the Further Information section at the end of this publication. Caution should be used interpreting these figures as in many cases they may not be statistically significant, particularly where they are based on very low number of applicants. Statistically significant values are indicated in the tables.

Detailed Results

Prison Officers (Summary Table 1a and Table 2)

Figure 1: Ethnic minority representation for Prison Officer candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

Ethnic minority (excluding white minority) candidates made up 39.6% of all Prison Officer applicants, and 26.8% of formal offers accepted between July 2022 and June 2024. The statistically significant RRI value of 0.56 suggests that ethnic minority candidates had a lower rate of progression through the application process compared to white candidates. The stage that caused the largest disparity was between being invited to assessment and being made a provisional offer (RRI of 0.78^{[footnote 2]}). The proportion of applicants accepting a formal offer was lowest among ‘Other ethnic’ applicants with 2.4% of those that applied accepting a formal offer in the two years to June 2024 compared to 5.1% for white candidates.

Figure 2: Disability representation for Prison Officer candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

Disabled candidates made up 4.5% of all Prison Officer applicants, and 3.4% of formal offers accepted between July 2022 and June 2024. The statistically significant RRI value of 0.75 suggests that progression of disabled candidates through the application process was at a lower rate than non-disabled candidates. The stage that caused the largest disparity was between being made a provisional offer and accepting a formal offer (RRI of 0.73^{[footnote 2]}). This may be influenced by the [fitness test] (https://www.prison-officer-online-ac.co.uk/after-assessment-centre) which takes place between the awarding of a provisional offer and the formal offer.

Figure 3: Female representation for Prison Officer candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

Female candidates made up 38.3% of all Prison Officer applicants, and 29.4% of formal offers accepted between July 2022 and June 2024. Relative comparison of the overall rates for the 24-month period by gender gave a statistically significant RRI value of 0.67 indicating that females progressed through the application process at a lower rate compared to males. The stage that caused the largest disparity was between being made a provisional offer and accepting a formal offer (RRI of 0.70^{[footnote 2]}).

Operational Support Grades (Summary Table 1b and Table 3)

Figure 4: Ethnic minority representation for Operational Support Grade (OSG) candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

For the period July 2022 and June 2024, ethnic minority candidates made up 34.9% of OSG applicants and 17.8% of formal offers accepted. Comparison between ethnic minority candidates and white candidates gives a statistically significant RRI value of 0.40 showing that progression of ethnic minority candidates through the application process was at a lower rate compared to white candidates. This was driven by a large proportion of ethnic minority candidates not being made provisional offers (RRI of 0.63^{[footnote 2]}) and accepting formal offers (RRI of 0.77^{[footnote 2]}). The lowest progression rate among ethnic groups is among Black applicants with 3.0% of those that applied accepting a formal offer in the two years to June 2024 compared to 8.2% for white candidates.

Figure 5: Disability representation for Operational Support Grade (OSG) candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

Disabled candidates made up 6.6% of all OSG applicants, and 6.1% of formal offers accepted between July 2022 and June 2024. The comparison of disabled and non-disabled candidates gives an RRI value of 0.92, which was not statistically significant. This means that disabled OSG candidates progress through the application process at the same rate as non-disabled OSG candidates.

Figure 6: Female representation for Operational Support Grade (OSG) candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

Female OSG candidates made up 48.4% of all OSG applicants, and 53.8% of formal offers accepted between July 2022 and June 2024. The comparison of male and female candidates gives a statistically significant RRI value of 1.24, which suggests that the progression of female applicants through the application process was at a higher rate compared to male applicants.

HMPPS recruitment (Tables 4 to 7)

In the last two years to June 2024, there has been 458,174 applicants to HMPPS recruitment campaigns, 228,056 applicants were invited to an assessment, 56,135 were made a provisional offer and 35,310 accepted a formal offer.

Of these total applicants, there were 156,276 ethnic minority applicants making up 34.8% (11.4% Asian, 18.4% black, 3.5% mixed, 1.5% other). The proportion of ethnic minority applicants has ranged from 23.2% in Q3 2022 to a high of 51.0% in Q1 2024. There were 6,720 ethnic minority applicants that accepted a formal offer representing 19.5% of the total (6.3% Asian, 8.9% black, 3.4% mixed, 0.8% other), ranging over the period from 15.6% in Q4 2022 to a high of 26.6% in Q2 2024.

Figure 7: Ethnic minority representation for HMPPS candidates at each stage of the application process, Q3 2022 to Q2 2024

During the period, there were 33,319 disabled applicants to HMPPS recruitment campaigns. This amounted to 7.5% of all applicants, increasing from 7.5% in Q2 2022 to a high of 8.4% in Q2 2024. There were 2,605 (7.6% of the total) disabled applicants that accepted a formal offer overall in the two-year period, with proportions ranging from 7.0% in Q3 2023 to a high of 8.5% in Q2 2023.

There were 229,053 female applicants to HMPPS recruitment campaigns. This amounted to 50.5% of all applicants across the two-year period. Looking at the quarters, the proportion of female applicants has decreased from 53.9% in Q3-2022 to 44.9% in Q4-2023, before increasing to 51.4% in Q2 2024. There were 19,733 female applicants to accept a formal offer, 56.7% of the total, decreasing from 63.0% in Q3 2022 to a low of 50.6% in Q4-2023, before increasing to 53.5% in Q2 2024.

Further information

Technical information

The diversity statistics in this report are based on self-declared information that applicants have provided on the Oleeo recruitment system. Completion of the data on Oleeo is voluntary. Some applicants choose not to declare their details or do not complete the information – these applicants are grouped together and included in the ‘Unknown’ group. This is not a meaningful category, and accordingly those who do not declare their information cannot be included within analysis of the outcomes.

Any records downloaded from the Oleeo system with a time stamp after 23:59 on the last day of June 2024 have been removed. Some records do not have a timestamp for some of the recruitment stages. Where this is the case, we have assumed that where a candidate has reached a stage, they passed all the previous stages, even if they don’t actually have the relevant timestamps for all those earlier stages.

From December 2021, a change has been made to the way ‘Applicants accepted formal offer’ is defined. The raw data for applications includes a field containing the status of the application. In previous versions of this annex, only applications in which the status stated “Formal offer accepted” were included in the analysis. However, now, all applications that are indicated to have accepted a formal offer are included, regardless of the status text. This change is partly due to a change in the recording of recruitment data where more applications are now being labelled as ‘Confirmed Starter’.

Relative Rate Index (RRI)

The RRI, or Relative Rate Index,^{[footnote 3]} gives a standardised measure of difference between groups. This has been adopted in line with the Judicial Appointments Commission use of the RRI for presenting similar data, which was reviewed by MoJ statisticians in February 2020^{[footnote 4]}, and the RRI was widely used within the Lammy Review[^1]. These statistics use this metric to give a standardised view of any disparity of outcomes on recruitment by diversity characteristic.

The RRI is calculated by dividing the rate of progression (i.e. the percentage of those who applied that accepted a formal offer) for one group by the rate of progression for the other group with a diversity characteristic, thus creating a single standardised ratio measure of relative difference in outcomes between those two groups. If the rates were the same, the result would be a value of 1, which would indicate identical rates for both groups (that is a parity of outcomes). Significant deviation from 1 in either direction suggests a difference in the rates of outcomes.

Considering differences in the two rates on a relative basis on a standard scale, enables direct comparison of any disparity of outcomes between groups across exercises and across time. By convention, the RRI has been calculated with the under-represented group as the numerator, with the baseline reference group as the denominator. However, calculation in the reverse direction is equivalent and would result in the same interpretation.

When comparing rates and the RRI, it is important to consider uncertainty, to avoid the over-interpretation of fluctuations in outcomes that may be the result of chance alone. Tests of statistical significance have been conducted on the estimates in this publication that are based on the full 24-month period in order to ensure the interpretation of the RRI values take full account of the probability that the observed outcome may be the result of chance alone. Where a RRI is significant at the 95% confidence level, this has been denoted against the RRIs in Table 1 with a ‘**’. For the intermediate RRI values, significance has been determined using the ‘4/5th rule of thumb’^{[footnote 5]}.

In addition to consideration of the extent to which chance variation is involved in any apparent difference in the rates, it is important to consider what is known as practical significance; whether the actual magnitude of the apparent difference in the rates is sufficient to have a material impact, or whether the difference is small and of little material impact. To represent a meaningful disparity of outcomes, an apparent difference must be both statistically significant (unlikely to be the result of chance alone), and of sufficient magnitude to have practical significance.

To further aid interpretation using the ‘4/5th rule of thumb for adverse impact’ ^{[footnote 5]}, RRI values that fall within a range of 0.80 to 1.25 (the zone of tolerance) are not likely to indicate a difference in outcomes resulting in a disparity having practical significance. This sets a range around parity, within which fluctuations at least in part due to natural variation would not be taken as evidence of a disparity of outcomes representative of adverse impact to one group. This does not imply that an RRI falling outside of this range is indicative of the presence of a meaningful disparity.

As such, both statistical significance and practical significance where an RRI falls outside of the range 0.80 to 1.25 should generally be required to establish evidence of a disparity. In order to be more rigorous, Chi squared significance tests were performed on the total RRI values.

Findings suggestive of a disparity of outcome do not necessarily imply issues within the recruitment process and may reflect other differences between groups, such as level of experience. As rates are the combined result of representation among applicants and those accepting a formal offer, it is essential that a disparity of outcomes is interpreted in conjunction with a view on representation among applicants and progression at each stage of the recruitment process.

Notes and Conventions

The following symbols are used within the tables in this experimental statistics release:

~	values of two or fewer which have been suppressed
*	percentage suppressed due to small numbers. Where small numbers are present, percentages are highly volatile and potentially misleading.
-	denotes relative rate index not calculated due to suppressed values
..	denotes data not available.

Accredited official statistics in development

Accredited official statistics in development are a subset of newly developed or innovative accredited official statistics undergoing evaluation. They are developed under the guidance of the Head of Profession for Statistics (HoP) and published to involve users and stakeholders in the assessment of their suitability and quality at an early stage. Therefore, we would like to receive feedback as to how useful they are, whether a different analysis would be preferable, or any other comments about them. If you wish to send any views you may have about these accredited Official statistics in development, please use the contact details below.

https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/about-the-authority/uk-statistical-system/types-of-official-statistics/

Feedback relating to the content of this release should be sent to: Robert.Hartley@justice.gov.uk

Related statistics

These accredited official statistics in development have been published alongside His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Workforce Statistics Bulletin, as at 30 June 2024.

Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/media-enquiries

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to:

Rob Hartley
Corporate Data Sharing Lead
Data and Analysis Directorate
Ministry of Justice
10 South Colonnade
London
E14 4PH

Email: robert.hartley@justice.gov.uk

Next update: 20 February 2025

URL: www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics

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Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from

robert.hartley@justice.gov.uk

1. RRI values between 0.80 to 1.25 (i.e., 4/5 and 5/4) are considered close enough to 1, taking into account random fluctuation. Therefore, RRI values outside of this range are considered evidence of notable disparity. Additional testing is done on overall RRI calculations to give more reliable evidence for statistical significance. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Altman DG (1991) Practical statistics for medical research. London: Chapman and Hall ↩

3. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/869028/Methodology_Review_Report.pdf ↩

4. Dan Biddle. Adverse Impact and Test Validation: A Practitioner’s Guide to Valid and Defensible Employment Testing. Aldershot, Hants, England: Gower Technical Press. pp. 2–5. ISBN 0-566-08778-2. Toward a Coherent Test for Disparate Impact Discrimination: Peresie, J.L. 2009 ↩ ↩²