Official Statistics

Civilian personnel biannual diversity dashboard 1 October 2021: background sources and notes

Published 2 December 2021

Introduction

The Diversity Dashboard contains figures on the proportion of MOD Main Civilian Personnel with specific protected characteristics. It complements the Biannual Civilian Personnel Report (BCPR) by providing greater detail about these characteristics.

Published in April 2012 for the first time, the creation of the Diversity Dashboard is to meet the Departments obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty to provide information on its workforce in relation to the protected characteristics identified by the Equality Act 2010.

All Protected Characteristics are analysed and reported on against the relevant Minority grouping, defining Minority on a numeric basis as the smaller or smallest of two or more groups forming a whole, rather than any broader cultural or sociological definition relating to characteristics of groups.

For reported Protected Characteristics, the following elements form the numeric minority:

Gender - Female Ethnicity - BAME Sexual Orientation - LGB Religion & Faith - Non Christian Disability Status - Disabled Work Status - Part-Time

Read more about the Public Sector Equality Duty.

To assist anyone who requires historical or additional data, Analysis Statistics publishes Civilian and Armed Forces Personnel data.

Symbols and Conventions

Symbols

• not applicable (either numbers are not sufficiently robust or the declaration rate is less than 60%). || discontinuity in time series ~ fewer than five .. not available – zero or rounded to zero

Italic figures are used for percentages and other rates, except where otherwise indicated. All percentages are calculated from headcount totals (part time equivalent to one person), from unrounded figures and are shown to 1 decimal place.

Rounding

Where rounding has been used, totals and sub-totals have been rounded separately and so may not equal the sums of their rounded parts. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in “5” have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.

Data sources, quality and methods

All figures presented in tables in this publication meet the standards of quality and integrity demanded by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Where figures do not meet the standard they are deleted and shown in the table by the symbol “*”.

Data for MOD Main civilian personnel are taken from the personnel system - Human Resources Management System (HRMS) and are shown on a Headcount basis.

Civilian data on HRMS are a combination of fields mandated by Defence Business Services (DBS) organisation formerly the People Pay and Pensions Agency (PPPA) such as grade, with voluntary fields such as disability status or ethnicity. Civilian personnel complete these fields based on their self-perceptions, but are under no obligation to complete these fields. It is not possible for Analysis area to assess the accuracy or consistency of the declarations made by individuals within these fields.

Due to the HRMS reset of the disability field on 18 April 2011 to accommodate the new disability reporting requirements, insufficient numbers of personnel have made disability declarations to be able to report disability representation with any validity from July 2011 to October 2018 (declaration rate below 60 per cent). DS (Civilian) worked with diversity policy colleagues to encourage people to complete their diversity records. (People still had the option to positively opt-out of providing details by selecting ‘Choose not to declare’). The declaration rate in January 2019 rose above 60 per cent, allowing the representation rate to be reported on.

A breakdown by grade band and age is not presented for religion as the comparison shown is not between a minority and majority group. The 3-way comparison between Christian, non-Christian and Secular beliefs would fragment the data too much to be meaningful or statistically viable in a tabular format. All ages quoted in this publication are based on ‘age at last Birthday’. Ages are derived by the formula ‘situation date (for strengths) minus date of birth’.

Background Notes

Structural changes to the Top Level Budget areas have occurred during the time-series covered by this publication. In some cases this means that figures are not directly comparable across the whole period. To aid understanding of these changes and how they have impacted upon the figures the detail of these changes is provided here:

1. Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) has been reported as a Bespoke Trading Entity since 01 July 2015. Due to the size and makeup of DE&S, its removal from MOD main had an impact on a number of diversity measures (an increase or decrease which was inconsistent with previous time series data. To allow a direct comparison of data from April 2014 to April 2018, DE&S data has been removed for April 2015.

2. This publication includes four diversity data tables that were previously in ‘Statistical Series 2 – Personnel Bulletin 2.02 – Civilian Personnel’. This publication ceased after 2015 following Secretary of State approval and public consultation. These tables provide information on grade by different diversity variables. The following notes apply:

i. Grade equivalent is shown in terms of the broader banding structure and is based on paid grade. Senior Civil Service totals include personnel outside the Senior Civil Service but of equivalent grade, primarily Senior Medical Specialist and Fee Paid consultants.

ii. Declaration rates are based on all known positive declarations, excluding those who select “choose not to declare” or have not responded.

Further Information

Contact Us

Defence Statistics welcome feedback on our statistical products. If you have any comments or questions about this publication or about our statistics in general, you can contact us as follows:

Defence Statistics (Civilian Personnel)
Email: DefStrat-Stat-CivEnquiries@mod.gov.uk

If you require information which is not available within this or other available publications, you may wish to submit a Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the Ministry of Defence. For more information, see:

The Freedom of Information Act

Other contact points within Defence Statistics are:

Contact Point	Telephone	Email address
Defence Expenditure Analysis	030 6793 4531	DefStrat-Econ-ESES-DEA-Hd@mod.gov.uk
Price Indices	030 6793 2100	DefStrat-Econ-ESES-PI-Hd@mod.gov.uk
Naval Service Manpower	023 9254 7426	DefStrat-Stat-Navy-Hd@mod.gov.uk
Army Manpower	01264 886175	DefStrat-Stat-Army-Hd@mod.gov.uk
RAF Manpower	01494 496822	DefStrat-Stat-Air@mod.gov.uk
Tri-Service Manpower	020 7807 8896	DefStrat-Stat-Tri-Hd@mod.gov.uk
Civilian Manpower	020 7218 1359	DefStrat-Stat-Civ-Hd@mod.gov.uk
Health Information	030 6798 4423	DefStrat-Stat-Health-Hd@mod.gov.uk

If you wish to correspond by mail, our postal address is:

Analysis Statistics (Civilian)
Ministry of Defence, Main Building
Floor 3 Zone M
Whitehall
London
SW1A 2HB

For general MOD enquiries, please call: 020 7218 9000