Labour’s call for more transparency on the gender balance of candidates selected for Whitehall’s top jobs has been rejected by the Civil Service Commission.
Shadow cabinet office minister Louise Haigh, who remains in post despite the turmoil on Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench, has criticised the recent all-male round of permanent secretary appointments, and told CSW that her party would back positive discrimination in order to level the playing field for top civil service jobs.
She has also pressed the Cabinet Office to publish the shortlists from which the prime minister makes the final call on who will lead a department as perm sec, with then-Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin saying last month that this was a “serious suggestion” that he would look into.
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However, the latest annual report by the Civil Service Commission, which regulates senior civil service appointments, reveals that the watchdog has its own concerns about the impact of such a move on privacy.
“The Commission recognises the legitimate public interest in the gender balance in permanent secretary competitions and notes that there have been recent calls to see the shortlists published,” it says.
But it adds: “We do not believe that that would be in the interests of the individuals, whose privacy would be inappropriately affected, nor of the civil service more generally, since compromising applicants’ privacy is likely to have a deterrent effect on potential future applicants.”
Repsonding to the commission's report, Haigh tweeted that she was "not giving up" on the fight for full disclosure.
While the CSC does not reveal the names of candidates in the running for perm sec jobs, it does publish a detailed breakdown of success rates by gender in senior civil service competitions over the previous year.
According to the latest figures, female applicants remained in the minority in competitions at all three of the civil service’s most senior grades in 2015-16.
Women represented 18% of total applicants overall, with 17% of those who threw their hat into the ring at director level being women, 18% at director general level, and 35% at perm sec level.
However, the CSC says there are “encouraging” signs of progress, with those women who did apply then being “significantly” more likely than men to make the final list of candidates, and just as likely as men to be appointed to senior roles after interview.
According to the figures, 19% of all women who applied for jobs across the top three pay bands went on to be shortlisted for interview, compared to a success rate of 10% for men. And of those female interviewees, 22% went on to appointed, the same rate as for men.
“Overall, those figures are encouraging,” the CSC said. “There remains some way to go before the senior ranks of the civil service truly reflect the wider community they serve but, in gender terms at least, there is some positive progress.”
Despite that progress, the CSC cast a less-than-glowing verdict on the wider diversity picture, with its report also finding that black and minority ethnic civil servants were “significantly” less likely to be interviewed for top jobs.