Under Article 5 of the Race Relations Act 1976, HMRC is required to keep statistics analysed by racial group, which monitor:
The statistics for 2006-07 are attached (appendices 1 to 23). We have included a summary of the analysis that we have carried out on these statistics. This year we have also included statistics on nationality.
A new online HR database was created during 2006-07, following the merger of HM Customs & Excise (HMCE) and the Inland Revenue (IR). However, technical difficulties were experienced when we attempted to transfer diversity data from the two former departments. Because of incompatibilities between the IT systems of the two former departments it proved impossible to merge the databases and we had to initiate a new data gathering exercise, starting from a zero baseline.
We ran a major campaign, with the full backing of senior management and the trade unions, to encourage staff to make diversity declarations. This has resulted in an ethnicity declaration rate that currently stands at 67 per cent.
Raising the level of our ethnicity database is one of our top diversity priorities for 2008-09 and we have developed a comprehensive action plan to achieve this.
The size of the new department reduced during 2006-07 following the merger. Overall, the number of staff in HMRC fell from 103,691 at 31 March 2006 to 96,505 at 31 March 2007.
During 2006-07 the percentage of ethnic minority staff employed in HMRC reduced from 7.9 per cent to 6.6 per cent of total staff. This may be a consequence of the grades and geographical areas in which the greatest number of staff reductions occurred. The majority of our ethnic minority staff are in junior grades, where they represent 8.5 per cent of Administrative Assistants (AA) and 6.8 per cent of Assistant Officers (AO) and Officers (O).
We are continuing to look at the underlying reasons for the reduction
in the overall representation of ethnic minority staff in HMRC and will
be addressing this as a priority in the coming year.
Many business units are organised nationally with numerous geographical
locations. The highest percentage of ethnic minority staff are in London
based business units. For example, Communications and Marketing where
20.5 per cent of staff are from ethnic minority groups.
Asian-Indian is the largest ethnic group in HMRC at nearly 3 per cent.
The smallest is ‘other black background’ at 0.02 per cent.
We have shown the figures by government office regions as this makes them more relevant to nationality.
Most staff appear to identify with their country of origin/residence but in some countries/regions staff are more likely to identify themselves as British than others. For example, in Northern Ireland 43 per cent have chosen British but in Scotland the percentage is only 8 per cent and in Wales 12 per cent.
Those of ‘Other National Identity’ (ONI) account for only 0.7 per cent of staff overall. However, in London the percentage of ONI staff is 2.5 per cent. This is higher than the percentages of London staff who have declared themselves to be Irish, Welsh and Scottish at 1.1 per cent, 1.2 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.
During 2006-07 many HMRC jobs were ‘reserved’ for UK nationals in line with EU rules. Some of these restrictions were subsequently lifted and in 2007-08 the majority of jobs were opened to non-UK nationals.
Due to low recruitment levels, it has not been possible to draw statistically significant conclusions from these figures.
The data provided covers all online external recruitment campaigns started after 1 April 2006 and completed before 31 March 2007. The data is broken down into the different stages of the recruitment process, business area, grade and contract type.
HMRC recruits staff on three types of contract: Permanent, Fixed Term Appointment (FTA) and Temporary Fixed Term Appointment (TFTA). FTAs are recruited under the Civil Service full, fair and open competition rules and can be recruited for any length of time up to two years. TFTAs are not recruited under full, open competition but the selection of successful candidates must always be fair and on merit. TFTA appointments cannot last (or extend) more than 11 months.
We have now completed an Initial Assessment of Equality Impacts relating to our Recruitment and Selection Policy. The assessment highlighted gaps in our statistical data that have made it difficult to draw firm conclusions. We have now put measures in place to ensure that we record complete and accurate data for the future. Once we have sufficient accurate statistical data we will undertake a full analysis and further review of our recruitment and selection processes.
We are also undertaking a full review of graduate recruitment, which
will include marketing and the recruitment process. This review will look
at the data for the last three campaigns. It will review the quality of
the data and
determine whether current processes have an adverse impact on any group.
Reports have been produced using information from HMRC’s Online Learning system. We have looked at:
The training delivered within HMRC falls into two categories:
Face-to-face training includes:
Non-face-to-face (self-paced) training provided through Learning includes:
Ethnic group by grade for all learning – appendix 9 (PDF 120K) - breakdown of learning for face-to-face and non-face-to-face products by pay band. This includes all nominations for 2006 - 07 for satisfied, planned and waiting applicants.
Nominations satisfied by ethnic group – appendix 10 (PDF 86K) - breakdown of trainees, by pay band, who have received the training applied for at 31 March 2007.
Nominations planned by ethnic group – appendix 11 (PDF 86K) - breakdown of nominations, by pay band, received at 31 March 2007 and assigned to a course to take place after that date.
Nominations waiting by ethnic group – appendix 12 (PDF 86K) - breakdown of nominations, by pay band, received at 31 March 2007 and remaining on waiting list, without being assigned to a specific course.
We have been unable to identify the ethnic group of 43.85 per cent of total applicants for training in 2006-07. Of this figure, 4.74 per cent have chosen not to declare and 37.34 per cent have not recorded their ethnic origin in Online HR. The analysis we have undertaken has not shown any bias in the allocation of training and indications are that applicants and the take up of learning are evenly spread in percentage terms across the different ethnic groups. This is an area that we will continue to analyse as the reliability of our ethnicity database increases.
Online Learning was introduced in May 2007 and personnel details, including ethnicity data, is now fed directly into the new system from Online HR. This facility will improve our ability to provide data for this report and will remove the need to match data from two separate systems.
These figures cannot currently be broken down by business unit or by date. They are a summary of all reported internal trawls for posts in grades AA to SO which were advertised between 1 February 2006 and November 2007.
The figures are based on the outcome of all posts advertised in the
period. These figures cannot currently be broken down by business unit.
The statistics for both Grades AA to SO and Grade 6 and 7 recruitment
do not highlight any cause for concern in respect of nationality or ethnic
origin. However, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of our internal
vacancy filling processes. As part of this review, the policy holders
are consulting the Diversity Staff Networks, including members of the
Race Network. It is envisaged that the Grade 6 and 7 process will be more
closely aligned with the AA to SO process, including diversity monitoring.
From 2008-09 it will be possible to monitor promotion statistics by business
unit, grade of post, grade of applicant and the date the post was advertised.
Appointments to the SCS are made through internal promotion (the SCS Gateway), from other Civil Service departments and direct external recruitment. The figures available for 2006-07 are incomplete in that they do not show the progress of different groups, by ethnicity and nationality, through the various stages of the promotion and external recruitment process. The numbers are also small and make it difficult to draw meaningful, statistically significant conclusions.
We recognise that there are gaps in our monitoring systems and we are committed to addressing this for the coming year by ensuring that, for the future, we monitor promotions through the SCS Gateway by ethnicity and nationality, at each stage of the process. We will also raise this with our external recruitment agencies to ensure that we are able to monitor each stage of the external recruitment process. We also intend to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) of the SCS Gateway process to ensure it operates fairly for all candidates.
The HMRC appraisal system for Grades AA to Grade 6 was introduced in October 2005 and the attached results reflect the first full year of operation. There is a separate, cross government appraisal system for people in the SCS.
The tables separately show ethnicity and nationality results overall and by each grade. They include ‘not known’ (where staff have not provided data on their ethnic origin and/or nationality) and ‘choose not to declare’ (where people have made a positive choice not to give this data).
We have analysed the high-level ethnic minority data, comparing this to the 2005-06 results (comments within the tables). All the data is now being analysed by our Knowledge, Analysis and Intelligence (KAI) Team to identify any statistically significant differences between ethnic and nationality groups.
We will provide each Director with data for their staff to enable them to analyse results and take appropriate action to assure consistency and fairness of approach within their area of responsibility. We will collate findings from business areas to identify trends for the department and differences between business units and/or locations. We will address any issues that come to light.
We have recently initiated on a full EQIA of the appraisal system. We are also considering improvements for 2008-09 based on an ongoing full review of performance appraisal and reward. The findings from the review, monitoring and analysis work and the EQIA will all be used to help inform future changes to ensure our appraisal system operates fairly for all staff.
Nationality data is currently not readily available through our standard appraisal reporting process. In order to obtain it we have run an additional report as at 31 March 2007. This is clearly not ideal as two sets of data from different reporting methods have been merged and this has resulted in differences in total figures. We will address this for the future by adding nationality data into existing appraisal reporting procedures.
The figures collated for this Employment Duty Report relate to the period April 2006 to March 2007. During the period April 2006 to December 2007 three departmental policies were in operation. The new HMRC procedures were implemented in January 2007 and the statistics in this report are therefore an amalgam of three sets of procedures.
In August 2006, a possible trend was identified showing a disproportionate number of non-white employee dismissals. This related to the former HMCE procedures only. We conducted a detailed case by case analysis which demonstrated that individuals had been treated fairly and impartially through our grievance and discipline procedures.
The move to the new procedures in January 2007 resulted in significant change. For example, under the former procedures the majority of grievance and discipline cases were dealt with and escalated locally. Under the new procedures, specified discipline cases, grievance and discipline appeals are dealt with centrally by an independent panel. Former IR grievances were dealt with by complaints managers with separate fact finders and decision makers. This process was replaced by a local informal stage (local managers) and a central appeals stage, with an independent panel.
Serious and gross misconduct cases in the former IR were formerly dealt with by singleton decision makers. Under the new system, all gross misconduct cases are dealt with by a central panel and the decision as to whether a case falls into the ‘gross misconduct’ category is made jointly by Internal Governance and a senior business manager.
Under these new procedures we are now better able to monitor each stage of the process and this will enable us to produce business stream statistics for the 2007-08
We initiated a joint EQIA of both conduct and discipline and grievance
procedures based on the monitoring outcomes of the new process. We have
collated early statistics and consulted with our staff Equality Networks.
We are now carrying out a wide ranging review of the conduct and discipline
and grievance processes, which will include an analysis of the equality
impacts. The review of policies and procedures is due to be completed
by the end of June 2008 and monitoring will continue throughout the year.
The tables cover the period from 1 April to 31 October 2006. We have recently resurveyed our staff so that we will in future be able to provide comprehensive data on leavers by ethnicity and nationality categories. However, for 2006 we only have accurate and more detailed data for the period 1 April to 31 October.
The statistics show that a slightly higher proportion of leavers were from ethnic minorities (8.4 per cent) than their representation in HMRC as a whole. We will try to establish whether there are any underlying causes. For the future, we will monitor leavers across the department and by business area. We are asking leavers to complete a new online electronic exit questionnaire, to show us the reasons for leaving and to identify what people like and dislike about working in HMRC. The questionnaire will include diversity related questions including race.
