To ask His Majesty’s Government how they will assess whether young people are from a lower socio-economic background when recruiting to the Civil Service fast stream summer internship programme.
The refocused Civil Service summer internship scheme will give talented undergraduates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds the opportunity to see what a career in the Civil Service is like. We will assess eligibility for the summer internship scheme based on parental occupation at the age of 14. The Social Mobility Commission identifies this as the most accurate measure of socioeconomic background.
My Lords, both the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles make it clear that a person’s selection for work in the Civil Service must be on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition. These rules ensure that the Civil Service can recruit a substantial range of talent from all backgrounds. The changes proposed by the Government to the summer internship programme would allow the child of a mechanic, an electrician or even possibly a toolmaker to apply but discriminate against the child of a roofer, a taxi driver or a nurse, who would be deemed ineligible. Quite apart from this dramatically reducing the range of talent, does the noble Baroness really believe that this is still a fair, open and, indeed, sensible process?
The noble Baroness will not be at all surprised that I believe this to be appropriate, fair and open. She raises a crucial point at the heart of this issue: it is not about permanent positions in the Civil Service. All the statutes that she referred to continue to apply. This is about how we ensure that those people from all classes who have talent and ability have access. We are talking about 200 people a year getting access to an internship programme, one of several that are run by the Civil Service —never mind others that are run by the wider public service—to make sure that we do have a meritocracy. The noble Baroness will be aware that the previous Government operated a similar scheme, which increased the number of disabled people and those from minority ethnic backgrounds but failed those people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In fact, the numbers fell, which is why we are trying to increase them now.
My Lords, I declare an interest as the First Civil Service Commissioner. It is the Civil Service Commission’s statutory duty to ensure that entry is based on merit and is open and fair. However, as the Minister has outlined, this is an internship that leads to a process of being able to proceed to the Fast Stream Assessment Centre. I therefore ask the Minister what plans she has to assess the percentage of those who are successful and how that compares with other measures to ensure that this exercise serves the purpose that it is intended to.
I thank the noble Baroness for her question and for her work in this area. She will be aware that the fast-track internship programme started in 2000 and has had many different iterations, and therefore there are well-established assessment processes in place to make sure that changes work effectively. With regard to how we are doing it, we are adopting this scheme through our test-and-learn approach within the Cabinet Office to make sure that if we do not believe it is working then we will change it. We will be using the criteria that have previously been used, which is why we are using the definition I cited. That is how I can tell your Lordships that in 2022 the internship scheme had people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds at a level of 33% of applications, but that fell to 19.7% and now has fallen even further at this point. We have the data to demonstrate why we need to do this.
My Lords, I welcome the Minister reminding us that the original scheme had a diversity element, which was abolished by the Conservative Government in 2023 in a rather Trumpian attack on the whole idea of diversity. Does the Minister recall that when Oxford and Cambridge introduced similar diversity schemes for children from deprived backgrounds in poorer state schools there was an enormous amount of criticism? I was on the staff of Oxford University at the time and remember being almost physically assaulted. After 30 years, these are widely accepted to have brought a number of extremely bright children from poor backgrounds up into very successful academic, administrative and other careers, and I think this scheme is likely to have the same sort of effect.
The noble Lord raises a very good point. That is exactly what we are trying to do. Many Members of your Lordships’ House have had extraordinary opportunities. I am the first one in my family to have gone to university and yet I find myself in your Lordships’ House. Some of us have benefited hugely from similar schemes; this is making sure that there is as wide an opportunity as possible. The noble Lord is right, but he should also be aware that still a majority of people who end up on the fast track have been to Oxbridge.
My Lords, on this side of the House, we will welcome any initiative that helps kick the door open for young people from working-class backgrounds who, by the way, have plenty of merit but have been denied opportunities and face real barriers. We also know that at the top of the Civil Service the class make-up at senior levels has barely changed over decades. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us what the Government will do to ensure that those interns who are successful end up climbing that ladder and reaching the top, achieving their dreams?
The noble Baroness gets to the nub of why we have decided to change it. This is about making sure that the people who serve our country reflect our country, based on merit, talent and ability and not where they came from. We want that to be reflected throughout the Civil Service. We also need to make sure that people want to join the Civil Service. Noble Lords will be delighted, as I am, to know that the number of people applying for these internship schemes and for the fast track has increased by 65% in the last 12 months. I think that reflects a slightly different approach from our Civil Service.
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the biggest contribution to social diversity in the Civil Service would be to create genuine parity of esteem between the so-called policy profession and the professions in the Civil Service to do with implementation—procurement, finance, and so on? Policy officials are more than twice as likely to hold senior Civil Service status and overwhelmingly likely to achieve the top jobs in the Civil Service, and until that white collar/blue collar distinction is removed, all her efforts are likely to be in vain.
The noble Lord makes a very interesting point and one that I will reflect on and go back to officials to discuss. As someone who used to represent the electricians and engineering union, I agree that parity between white and blue collar is always for the best.
My Lords, as a former civil servant from the most working-class of backgrounds, while I am sure there are very good intentions here, I would have found it really difficult when I joined the Civil Service to not have been exposed to a wider group; I learned so much from that. I would like to know what the evidence base is for reaching this conclusion as I think there are good intentions but there are other ways that the Civil Service can be opened up as well.
I rarely wish to disagree with my noble friend, but in this instance I do. Obviously, she has huge experience, but this is one of a series of measures the Government are taking to make sure that access to the Civil Service and our wider public service as an employer is based on talent and ability, as I have said. This is not about stopping the Civil Service being a meritocracy; it is about ensuring that the meritocracy is available to everyone regardless of where they were born.
My Lords, previous Government Ministers made a point of making sure that the diversity which has been referred to included moving Civil Service departments to different regions of the country. Does the Minister agree that in the intern programme we also ought to reflect the diversity of different parts of our nation as opposed to the other elements she has referred to?