Corporate report

HMRC: Public Sector Equality Duty compliance 2021 to 2022

Published 31 January 2023

Foreword

HMRC has separate equalities responsibilities as an employer and a provider of public services, though there is a strong relationship between them. We continue to be committed to increase equality and contribute to the delivery of the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025.

We want to get things right for all of our customers. To help us do this, we have continued to gather insight to help us design and deliver our services. We’ve held over 40 customer immersion sessions this year and commissioned more research into customer needs. It’s a fundamental element of how we approach change for our customers and evaluate its effectiveness.

Our commitment to better understand our customers’ needs and improve their experience is helping us achieve our vision of being a trusted, modern tax and customs authority.

Our dedicated Extra Support Team has continued to provide help and reassurance to over 100,000 customers when needed. This, together with the excellent service provided by our 12 grant-funded voluntary and community organisations, really makes a difference to customers, and is something that we’re really proud of.

We are always striving to improve, and this coming year will see us strengthen the use of data in our equalities impact assessment (for both policy and operational delivery), enhancing an already thorough and diligent process. We will also deliver a digital inclusion strategy, supporting customers by breaking down some of the barriers to a full active participation in modern tax and customs services.

We want to get things right for our colleagues too. The initiatives we have put in place, including our Respect at Work programme, our race equality action plan and flexible working arrangements, should both help to make HMRC a great place to work and an organisation that better reflects the country we serve.

Jim Harra, First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive

About this report

HMRC’s vision is to be a trusted, modern tax and customs department.

Our vision is supported by our values, strategic objectives, equality objectives and the HMRC Charter

The information in this report is required by Regulation 2 of the Equality Act Specific Duty Regulations (SI 2011/2260). It:

• shows how the department complies with the Public Sector Equality Duty in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010
• covers the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022
• summarises our progress against our equality objectives for 2020 to 2024

HMRC’s equality objectives 2020 to 2024 and action plan

See HMRC’s equality objectives 2020 to 2024 and action plan.

HMRC’s 3 equality objectives

Objective 1: Inclusive

To be a great place to work for all our colleagues. To have a safe physical and digital environment with a culture where we can be authentic, have a voice and feel that we belong. To provide products and services that are designed around what customers need to do, are accessible, easy and quick to use.

Objective 2: Respectful

For every colleague to treat each other and our customers with respect every day. We will work together to achieve our common goals and have honest conversations with respect, when we do not live up to our standards. We will always treat customers fairly, in line with our values of respect, professionalism and integrity. We will be mindful of customers’ personal situations and provide extra support where required.

Objective 3: Representative

For the diversity of our colleagues to reflect the diversity of our customers. We will improve the health of the tax system by building trust and increasing fairness to improve our customer and colleague experience.

We also have an action plan that sets out what we’ll do to meet our equality objectives each year. This report sets out progress we have made against the equality objectives and action plan for colleagues and customers.

Customer-focused activities

Customer-focused activities that show progress against our equality objectives.

Inclusive

We aim to be an inclusive organisation and consider the needs of customers in all that we do. In particular, we are taking action in the following areas:

• research and insight
• assessing the effects of and designing our policies and projects
• digital accessibility
• customer Communications and guidance
• alternative language services

Research and insight

In 2021, we explored the experiences of customers who need support to interact with us digitally. This helped us to understand how to:

• provide better support for these customers
• make our current and future digital services and products more accessible

We also commissioned new research to understand how and why relationships between customers who need extra help, the Voluntary and Community Sector and HMRC have changed over the past 18 months. This follows our research in 2019 to improve our understanding of the support needs of customers who use the voluntary and community sector.

You can find more details about our research programmes on GOV.UK.

Alongside our programme of research, we run interactive ‘customer immersion’ sessions. These sessions give HMRC colleagues a unique opportunity to put themselves in customers’ shoes and develop a first-hand understanding of customers’ experiences as colleagues get the opportunity to listen and learn directly from customers. They also help to support HMRC’s Charter standards and strengthen our respectful and inclusive culture.

HMRC ran 40 sessions during 2021 to 2022, for example in April and May 2021, we held customer immersion sessions with deaf customers to understand:

• their views on the service that they get from us
• what we can do to improve that service
• how we can help build their confidence to use our Personal Tax Services

Following these sessions, we produced a series of self-serve training products and shared them across the department. This helped more colleagues understand what it feels like to be a deaf customer and how they can support those customers.

The insight we gather from research and immersion helps inform our work on customer journeys, which document the end-to-end experience of a customer when they interact with HMRC. Customer journeys are used to highlight and reduce customer pain points and to design new services that are inclusive and meet Charter standards.

We are also exploring options on how we can expand our data gathering capacity, with regards customer protected characteristics, to ensure we use the most up to date, relevant data and insight to inform our decisions and activities.

Assessing the effects of and designing our policies and projects

To comply with our equalities duties and ensure we consider the effects of new policies on customers, HMRC undertakes customer and equality impacting analysis for all new policies and publish tax information and impacts notes (TIINs). In 2021 to 2022 we published 79 TIINs.

We also complete and publish Equality Impact Assessments. These help to ensure that when we build new services and make changes to existing systems, they are designed to meet customer needs and delivered to enhance the customer experience. To meet our obligations under our Northern Ireland Equality Scheme during 2021 to 2022, we’ve published 8 Equality Impact Assessments for service delivery programmes.

To ensure policy and services are designed for all customers programmes and projects are expected to follow the Customer Design Standards. We refreshed these this year to align more closely with the department’s strategic goals and Charter. The Customer Design Standards:

• use data, insight and research to understand our customers
• determine how the change will impact customers
• aid customers’ ability to accommodate change
• evaluate and measure the effectiveness of the change on customers

Using these standards helps us to:

• understand the impact of new policy or services on customers
• make sure we have provisions in place to support customers if needed

Digital accessibility

HMRC is committed to ensuring that everyone can use its digital services. We regularly test our existing services, including our mobile applications, and review their compliance to the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (2018).

To make our services as accessible and inclusive as possible, we conduct user testing with our customers, throughout the service development lifecycle. This includes those who use assistive technology. We continue to look for ways to make the sign-up process for our user testers more inclusive, to make sure a diverse range of people take part in our research.

We’re also working with third-party software developers to help them make their products more accessible. We provide a list of compatible third party software packages for Making Tax Digital for VAT on GOV.UK.

Customer communications and guidance

During 2021 to 2022, HMRC continued to review and update its communications to customers, to make sure that they’re as easy to understand as they can be. This included almost 1000 pages of material including GOV.UK guidance and messages to VAT customers who are digitally excluded.

Working with external stakeholder groups and professional bodies this year we have expanded on our range of highly successful YouTube videos, including a series of videos to explain a customer’s options if they disagree with an HMRC decision.

We also produced online and face-to-face learning to help colleagues write to customers and improve the clarity, empathy and tone of our letters. The learning:

• includes information on writing for customers with disabilities; signposting them to HMRC’s extra support
• explains how using common words can really help them to understand our letters
• uses behavioural insight to give practical advice that staff can use to make their messages more effective

HMRC continues to use insight and understanding, along with good writing and design principles to:

• review communications from the customer’s perspective
• flag areas of potential difficulty
• consider customers who need extra support, such as those who experience mental health problems

Alternative language services

As an inclusive and representative organisation, HMRC has well-established, alternative language services and resources.

We’ve continued our partnership with the Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) to offer British Sign Language (BSL) translation services to support conversations with deaf customers. This helped 607 deaf customers with their tax affairs during 2021 to 2022.

This year, we’ve developed more online options in Welsh. This means that Welsh language customers can access these services in their language of choice.

From April 2021 to March 2022, the Welsh Language Unit translated nearly 2 million words into Welsh. Our customer service teams received:

• over 20,000 phone calls
• 1,300 emails
• 5,000 pieces of post in Welsh

In addition, we also had over 650,000 views of our online Welsh language services.

We have dedicated providers to translate and interpret in multiple languages. We give all our customer-facing colleagues guidance on how to access these services.

Respectful

We are taking action to ensure that we always treat our customers with respect. We have made progress on:

• embedding HMRC’s Charter
• our customer service Extra Support Team
• providing support for customers going through compliance checks
• customer complaints

Embedding HMRC’s Charter

In 2021 to 2022, we continued to embed HMRC’s Charter standards in the following ways:

1. We improved professional standards in our compliance activities, so that compliance managers and their teams have the right skills to deliver the Charter standards. We continue to develop new measures of professionalism and customer experience
2. We focused on improving our operational processes and guidance. For example, providing a smooth handover between compliance and debt management areas
3. We published new guidance on GOV.UK to ensure customers are aware of the extra help that’s available to them, if needed
4. We worked with our funded voluntary and community organisations to understand the needs of unrepresented customers and strengthen the signposting to these organisations

During 2021 to 2022, HMRC continued to increase colleagues’ awareness of the Charter and helped them develop the skills they need to deliver the Charter standards. These skills include:

• training to better understand customers perspectives
• writing for the customer in a way that is tailored to their needs
• understanding how to assess the effects of policies and processes on customers

We have refreshed our awareness and training modules, which will help colleagues across HMRC understand what they can do to fulfil our Charter commitments and equalities obligations in all customer interactions.

The Customer Experience Committee, responsible for overseeing HMRC’s overall performance against the Charter standards, met 5 times during 2021 to 2022 and continued to support implementation activity for the HMRC Charter. It also ran sessions on customer experience issues in key areas such as transformation, communications and customer service performance. The committee helps ensure the customers’ views are at the forefront of all customer related decisions and transformational activity.

We publish an annual report to evidence the extent HMRC has demonstrated the standards of behaviour and values included in the HMRC Charter. For more information on, please read the HMRC Charter annual report: 2021 to 2022.

Our customer service Extra Support Team

Our customer service Extra Support Team has continued to provide support and guidance to those who need extra help. This includes customers in vulnerable circumstances. This service helps people according to their needs. Types of support include:

• specialist phone or webchat service, such as a bespoke telephone authorisation service for digitally excluded customers
• investigating and calling customers back about more complex queries
• support for customers in debt
• providing alternative formats for over 18,000 customers during 2021 to 2022, including large print, Braille, audio and plain text on CD
• video appointments, to give customers the benefit of a face-to-face visit without the need for them to travel
• an SMS service, to remind customers of their appointments with HMRC
• work with the Home Office to support customers with their EU settlement status so that they continued to receive the benefits they were entitled to

In 2021 to 2022, the Extra Support Team supported over 100,000 customers with the service receiving an overall customer satisfaction rate of over 97%.

Providing support for customers going through compliance checks

The compliance Extra Support Team provides extra guidance and advice to colleagues to support customers that need extra support during a compliance check. During 2021 to 2022, the team handled 2,277 requests for support.

During the same period, the team also delivered extra support awareness sessions to over 2,700 Customer Compliance Group colleagues. This helped to raise capability and understanding of when a customer may need extra support. The sessions also promote a bespoke learning product to further help colleagues identify and support compliance customers who need extra support. So far, nearly 21,000 colleagues have completed the learning, which is now mandatory for compliance caseworkers.

Customer complaints

In 2021 to 2022 we worked with the Adjudicator to reduce the impact of cases that are prematurely escalated to the Adjudicator, by ensuring focused support for customers who need extra help and continuously improving customer communications. We reviewed our strategy for handling complaints and are continuing to develop, alongside the Adjudicator, a new case management system, CHART (Complaints Handling Analysis and Reporting Tool) which will be rolled out in 2022 to 2023 and will provide better categorisation and learning from complaints.

Representative

We will be a representative organisation by:

• working with external stakeholders and customers
• working with Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations

Working with external stakeholders and customers

We consult external stakeholders who represent our customers in every aspect of our service delivery. We’re working with over 100 stakeholder groups to:

• build supportive, trusting, and professional relationships
• ensure that we apply their knowledge and expertise across HMRC so that we continue to improve

Our Individual Stakeholder Forum and the Additional Needs Working Group represent a wide range of customers who need extra support and provide us with invaluable insight to help us continuously improve our services.

HMRC is grateful for the continued support from all our stakeholders.

Working with Voluntary and Community Sector organisations

HMRC provides funding to some charitable organisations to ensure our customers are supported by those organisations, when needed. HMRC runs a competition for grant funding, with the latest competition in 2021 funding 12 organisations over 3 years, from 2021 to 2024, with funds totalling £4.98 million. We’ll continue to work closely with these organisations to help reach customers who need support and extra help with HMRC’s services.

In 2021 to 2022, the 12 funded VCS organisations helped almost 46,000 customers across a range of channels, including phone calls, emails and face-to-face advice.

Our funded organisations have also helped us source a diverse range of users for our customer research.

Colleague-focused activities

Colleague-focused activities that show progress against our action plan.

Like last year, we’ve taken action in 4 areas:

1. process improvements
2. learning and development
3. accountability and governance
4. communicating our inclusive culture

Colleague-focused activities in these areas help us to be an inclusive, representative, and respectful workplace. These equality objectives support our main strategic objective of being a ‘great place to work’.

HMRC aims to improve its workplace culture, employee experience and represent diversity in its workforce at all levels. In 2020 to 2021, we continued and improved existing programmes and policies including our Respect at Work programme, race equality delivery, and employment and reward offer. We are proud to have delivered race equality workshops to 54,000 colleagues.

We also developed new evidence-based activities to improve regional representation, consolidating our race learning offer for all colleagues and support of our staff networks. In 2020 to 2021, we’ve seen improvements on equality, diversity and inclusion which are reflected in our data. The diversity of our workforce has further improved to better reflect the customers we serve.

The report below gives further details of the work that we’ve undertaken and of our representation data. We continue to be committed to make improvements on equality and further contribute to the delivery of the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025.

Process improvements

We’re committed to:

• improving our employees’ experience
• ensuring HMRC represents our diverse range of customers
• helping our colleagues deliver improved organisational performance

Accessible and fair recruitment processes

These are crucial in helping us meet our representation targets, set out in the appendix to this report. We especially want to improve the representation of colleagues from less well represented groups:

• colleagues from an ethnic minority background
• colleagues who are disabled

We attract an ethnically diverse range of candidates with 35% of job applications coming from people from ethnic minority backgrounds. However, the proportion of ethnic minority applicants decreases at sift and interview stages and they receive 23% of total job offers.

Nevertheless, application and job offer rates have continued to improve in recent years as shown in table 1 below. Our overall representation of ethnic minority staff was 17.1% by the end of 2021 to 2022. This is more than the national ethnic minority working-age population of 14.4% taken from Working age population - GOV.UK Ethnicity facts and figures.

Table B in the Appendix shows ethnic minority representation by grade. Our ambition is to have a representative workforce at all grades and locations. We have therefore increased the level of independent challenge on recruitment panels. We’ll continue to monitor progress and identify other areas where we can improve.

The proportion of disabled colleagues in our workforce was 13.4% by the end of 2021 to 2022. This is lower than the UK disabled working-age population of 20%, taken from The employment of disabled people 2021 - GOV.UK. However, the proportion of disabled applicants as well as those going on to receive job offers continues to improve and we remain focused on improving overall representation levels of disabled people. We are working with Evenbreak, a specialist organisation, to learn how to support more diverse talent acquisition.

One example of the support we offer disabled candidates is the introduction of our ‘Disability Matters’ booklet, following extensive consultation, which applicants access as they apply for vacancies. We wanted to ensure that disabled applicants had a positive experience dealing with HMRC as they consider working for us. The booklet provides a friendly welcome to the department, setting out our inclusive culture and in particular the various ways in which we can support disabled job applicants through the recruitment process.

We also:

• developed a dedicated site for our vacancy holders which provides guidance on how to make reasonable adjustments at each stage of the recruitment process
• published videos and personal stories from our disabled colleagues, to show our commitment to disability inclusion
• continue to work with our staff diversity networks to explore best practice in other government departments

Through this work we achieved the ‘Visibly Better Recruiter’ status from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). This recognises HMRC’s achievements as an accessible and inclusive recruiter. The RNIB now include a link to HMRC job adverts on their own Job Seekers site and due to the work we have undertaken with the RNIB to ensure our recruitment process is fair and open to those with sight impairments, they provide their recognition that HMRC is an inclusive employer and has their ‘visibly better’ recruiter accreditation. We were also awarded ‘Highly Commended Excellence in Disability Leadership’ in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Mark of Excellence Awards.

During 2021 to 2022, we continued with our efforts to ensure a more diverse workforce. For example, we worked with the many different business areas of our department to help them gain an insight into how to they could improve diversity and inclusion. We developed data tools allowing them to closely monitor staff representation rates in their areas and worked with them to support evidence-based solutions.

We also publicised jobs through diversity-focused job boards and continued to deliver outreach activity, such as virtual events and career fairs.

Externally, we continued to sponsor people through the Civil Service Commission’s Exception 2 Life Chances Programmes. This includes schemes for:

• veterans
• care leavers
• ex-offenders
• unemployed benefit recipients
• neurodivergent jobseekers
• young people in alternative education
• young people in special educational needs

We’ve increased the number of recruits through these schemes for the fourth year running.

Table 1: Applicant and job-offer rates for the years 2019 to 2020, 2020 to 2021, and 2021 to 2022. They are split by disability, ethnicity, sex and sexual orientation

	Applicants 2019 to 2020	Applicants 2020 to 2021	Applicants 2021 to 2022	Offers 2019 to 2020	Offers 2020 to 2021	Offers 2021 to 2022
Women	45%	45%	50%	50%	50%	52%
Ethnic minority	32%	34%	36%	20%	23%	23%
Disabled	6%	8%	11%	5%	8%	10%
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and other orientation	5%	7%	7%	6%	7%	7%

Figures rounded to the nearest %.

Accessibility and inclusive design

We are committed to the principle of accessibility which means that we want to ensure there are no barriers that would prevent any member of staff from interacting with online content and systems. Accessibility is essential in the workplace to enable all colleagues to fully engage and perform well. HMRC is committed to ensuring all our services and tools are accessibility compliant in line with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 legislation, and which supports our:

• equality objectives - to create an inclusive and respectful workplace
• strategic objective of being a great place to work

HMRC has adopted principles to put user experience at the heart of design of its IT systems. We’ve published governance measures, resources, and guidance to reinforce it.

The HMRC Internal Service Accessibility Review is a long-term and large-scale project to improve accessibility of over 220 internal systems with a staff interface, to ensure legal and regulatory compliance. The programme has moved into a testing and remediation phase and continues to ensure user friendliness and raise awareness of internal accessibility and assistive technology.

HMRC is also leading the way in transforming the civil estate. We are working in partnership with the Government Property Agency (GPA) to deliver Government Hubs across our various Regional Centres — one of the biggest property programmes in the UK. We are aiming to raise the bar in the Government Estate and beyond on inclusion, with workspaces where everyone is welcome and can access all the facilities that enable them to operate to their full potential, independently, with dignity and with ease.

We’ve worked closely with our Disability Network Groups to improve our accommodation and accessibility requirements in our new regional centres, to support office and hybrid working.

The British Sign Language (BSL) Act received royal assent in April 2022. We’ve made BSL available across HMRC, internally and externally. This is in line with our equality objectives and ensures that we are legally compliant and are exploring innovative suggestions around rapid access technological options to complement our contractual provision of BSL interpreters.

Respect at Work programme

In 2019, HMRC published its Respect at Work Review, an independent review about what it’s like to work at HMRC. The review made a series of recommendations that HMRC implemented in 2020 to 2021. This included significant changes to departmental policy, processes and practice. In 2021 to 2022 we have continued to take significant steps towards creating a more respectful and inclusive workplace through HMRC’s ongoing Respect at Work programme.

Our People Survey showed improved results on erasing bullying, harassment and discrimination. Colleagues in general as well as those with a minority position reported less discrimination, bullying and harassment in 2021 compared to 2020. This is reflected in tables 2a and 2b.

Table 2a: Discriminated at work in the past 12 months

	2021	2020
HMRC	8%	10%
Ethnic minority	10%	15%
White	7%	8%
Disabled	16%	20%
Non-disabled	5%	7%
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual orientation	11%	13%
Heterosexual	7%	9%

Table 2b: Bullied and/or harassed in the past 12 months

	2021	2020
HMRC	7%	9%
Ethnic minority	8%	12%
White	6%	7%
Disabled	13%	16%
Non-disabled	5%	6%
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual orientation	11%	13%
Heterosexual	6%	8%

The focus for 2022 has been on evaluating the impact of the changes we have made since 2019. In order to assure that they are delivering the right outcomes, we conducted a series of deep dives with our colleagues. The insight from those conversations helped us to identify eleven actions to focus on to close the gaps compared to what we originally set out to achieve. Once completed HMRC will have the capability and capacity to continue to improve culture through business as usual.

Workplace adjustments

In 2021 to 2022, we held engagement sessions with disabled colleagues to really try and understand their experiences of asking for workplace adjustments in HMRC. This invaluable insight helped us to recommended improvements to ensure colleagues receive a high-quality service. These recommendations have been taken forward together with Cabinet Office and the Civil Service Disability Champions Group. Each year we support thousands of staff through supporting alternative working patterns and special working arrangements, specialist assistive technology and office equipment, support workers and travel support.

Our ambition is to create an inclusive workplace where all colleagues can perform to their full potential through workplace adjustments policy and practices that fully support our disabled colleagues.

On 1 April 2022 we launched a new in-house, customer-centred service for processing new claims and renewals of existing Access to Work awards. Work towards this included planning a review of the service and making it part of our regular workplace adjustments approach.

Raising and resolving concerns

Our ambition is to drive a ‘speak up’ culture in HMRC. When a colleague sees, hears or experiences something that causes them concern, we want them to be able to tell someone in HMRC and be confident that something appropriate and proportionate will be done about it. This is integral to creating a safe and respectful workplace.

In February 2020, following the recommendations of the Respect at Work review, HMRC launched our new Raising and Resolving Concerns (RRC) policy and processes to further our ambition. In early 2022 we reviewed our new policy and approach and feedback from colleagues, as well as from others supporting the process across HR, told us that our approach has made it much clearer and straightforward to raise a concern and direct colleagues to further support.

In September 2021 we also participated in the cross-Government Speak Up Week communications campaign to raise awareness of the importance and ways of raising concerns and supplemented this with rolling activity throughout the year. As part of our approach to continuous improvement we also embedded learning on ‘inclusive decision making’ into our policy framework.

Expert Advice Service

Alongside our new Raising and Resolving Concerns (RRC) policy, in 2020 we also launched our new Expert Advice Service (EAS) of dedicated caseworkers to support colleagues and managers in raising and resolving concerns. Since 2020 we have continued to see significant improvements in how concerns are resolved, improving colleague experience. In 2021 to 2022 the EAS has continued to make service improvements through:

• the recruitment and training of a diverse new group of 403 decision managers (managing formal concerns). This training specifically focused on inclusive decision-making and evidence-based decisions. This has helped ensure formal issues can be responded to and resolved more quickly and decisions are based on objectivity, fairness, consistency and are easily understood
• introducing a new Senior EAS Caseworker role to support Decision Managers or Managers handling our most complex or multi-stranded cases which require enhanced support
• introducing the EAS Professionalism & Capability team who monitor and manage requests for procedural reviews of cases to ensure colleagues understand how certain decisions were reached but also identify any learning that can be taken forward into continuous improvement activity for case handling

This means the EAS has:

• successfully supported and coached 48 colleagues to resolve their concern informally through a new mediation service
• reduced the average handling time of formal concerns cases from 86 days to 64 days

Modern employment and reward offer

Between June and September 2021 HMRC delivered significant pay and contract reform for the department. Our ambition is to make HMRC a Great Place to Work. In the last period we have achieved this through improved pay (for colleagues from Administrative Assistant to Grade 6 level) and modernised working arrangements that are simpler, fairer and more consistent. This has enabled the department to respond better to the needs of our customers and give our colleagues more flexibility to support their work-life balance.

The key reforms included:

• non-contractual flexibility that allows colleagues to work at home around 2 days a week
• a contractual flexible working hours scheme for all colleagues (Administrative Assistant to Grade 6)
• a new and more inclusive approach for colleagues to request flexible working arrangements
• a new approach to annual leave which allows new colleagues to increase their leave entitlement more quickly (linked to length of service)
• extending our paternity pay offer from 2 weeks to 4 weeks
• providing a special leave entitlement to support when a child arrives prematurely and time off is needed to provide care
• ensuring both parents receive paid time off for attending antenatal appointments

In November 2022, we published our most recent HMRC gender pay gap report. In HMRC, we recognise that there are more women in junior grades where the pay is lower, and less women in senior grades. We’ll continue the work to create equal opportunities for all and reduce pay gaps across different groups in our workforce.

Managing the equality impact of COVID-19

During the outbreak of COVID-19 the health, safety and wellbeing of all colleagues was top priority. To support colleagues working both at home and in our offices, during 2021 to 2022 we continuously improved our bespoke, bite-sized guidance products and tools in line with changing government guidance. This included utilising the full IT suite available to ensure colleagues could access guidance across a range of devices, from any location, which was compatible with assistive technologies.

The ongoing pandemic continued to demand a tailored approach to the employee experience and colleagues’ requirements irrespective of whether they were working at home or in the workplace. We regularly risk assessed our work activities and locations in line with the UK and Devolved Administrations COVID guidance for employers. This included the parts relevant to vulnerable employees and those caring for vulnerable people to ensure we were in step with the latest government guidance and approach in each nation.

Working Safely Together guides were published for each HMRC office, to inform colleagues working in our offices throughout the pandemic, and later for those returning to office working. These guides outlined COVID-secure measures in each HMRC building, providing information, images and guidance on what had changed and what to expect, such as maximum safe numbers in elevators and one-way signage.

In line with the gradual lifting of COVID restrictions, comprehensive discussion toolkits were introduced to ensure colleagues and their managers understood what a return to office working meant for each colleague in the context of their personal circumstances. Weighted towards prioritising colleague health, safety and wellbeing, these return to office conversations explored:

• personal circumstances and needs, such as specific health, wellbeing or workplace adjustments required
• individual risk assessments
• any other concerns or barriers to returning to office working

before putting any plans in place and agreeing date/s for returning to and working in an office.

This risk-based approach ensured that colleagues who needed higher-level support, could access it. For example:

• COVID-specific vulnerability screening through our Occupational Health provider
• mental health support through our Employee Assistance Programme

Learning and development

All our learning and development activities are based around HMRC’s values and commitments. They reinforce our commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion.

HMRC’s values:

• We are professional
• We act with integrity
• We show respect
• We are innovative

Our commitments are to:

• be fair, kind and human
• not create fear in others
• include people regardless of difference
• work together, recognising our common goal
• have honest conversations, with respect

Departmental e-learning ‘Choose Your Own Path’

In July 2020, to further embed HMRC’s commitments, we launched this interactive, scenario-based learning. By the end of March 2022, over 37,000 colleagues had completed the training. We also asked new colleagues to HMRC to complete the training as part of their induction.

Race Equality and Inclusion Workshops

Developed and delivered in-house, the learning was made up of independent e-learning followed by an online workshop led by 400 specially trained staff.

The workshops started in November 2020 and aimed to reach 50,000 colleagues. By June 2022, 54,000 had taken part in the workshops. The learning saw conversations between colleagues, and allowed Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority colleagues to share their real experiences. It reinforced the expectation that colleagues should step in and challenge racist or inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

The workshops showed that the learning fulfilled a need. In a post-learning survey of a representative sample of 2,400 respondents:

• 73% felt they had a personal responsibility to act if they witnessed racism in the workplace
• 68% were committed to being actively anti-racist

The learning module has created a positive, collective experience with opportunities for colleagues to voice their experiences and become an ally.

However, it also showed more work needs to be done. For example, 35% of those that answered the post-learning survey, had witnessed or experienced an incident of racist or discriminatory behaviour. Only 40 of the respondents said they had intervened or challenged the person responsible for this behaviour. Such data reflects the experience of our ethnic minority colleagues.

New learning product – Building an Inclusive Workplace

After the closure and evaluation of the Race Equality and Inclusion Workshops, we started to embed the learning into an online product that colleagues can complete by themselves. The new product transforms the Race Equality and Inclusion Workshops into ‘business as usual’ learning for new starters and existing colleagues.

In the product, the ‘race lens’ will expand to become an ‘inclusion lens’. This recognises the experiences shared by colleagues with protected or other diversity characteristics. Again, we aim to increase understanding, ownership and confidence in colleagues to create an inclusive and respectful workplace for everyone. The learning will use video scenarios and will be accessible by all staff.

Talent schemes

Talent schemes are a great way to help develop colleagues – particularly those from groups that are underrepresented in our workforce. These schemes also help HMRC meet its equality objectives. In 2021 to 2022, we focused on the virtual delivery of our Accelerated Development Programmes:

• Spring: for Administrative Assistant to Officer grades
• Leap: for Higher Officer to Senior Officer grades
• Embrace: for Black and Asian colleagues at Administrative Officer to Officer and Higher Officer to Senior Officer grades
• Ascend: for grades 6 and 7

Delivering these programmes online makes them more accessible to a wide range of colleagues. Feedback from participants has remained consistently excellent.

With the help of diversity staff networks, we advertised the talent schemes as widely as possible. This included our internal programmes and the Civil Service Future and Senior Leaders Schemes. We offered Programme Information Sessions to give more details about all the talent programmes. We aimed these sessions at colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled colleagues, to encourage a diverse range of colleagues to take part.

HMRC also participated in the Civil Service Summer Diversity and Autism Exchange Internship Programmes. We did an equality, diversity and inclusion session for the interns on our talent schemes.

Career Development Programme

Before the coming review of our Accelerated Development Programmes, we developed and rolled out the Career Development Programme. The programme aims to help regions make targeted interventions to support groups of colleagues, where evidence shows a drop in representation levels between progressive grades.

This roll-out followed 2 pilots specifically for ethnic minority colleagues (at HO to SO and G6 to 7 grades), which helped 30 participants in their career and route to becoming senior civil servants.

In 2021 to 2022, the North East region started the programme for colleagues from Black and Asian backgrounds at AA to O grades. In 2022 to 2023, other regions will implement the programme.

Accountability and governance

To improve equality, diversity and inclusion in HMRC, it’s vital that we have the right accountability and governance structures in place. Since the launch of our Equality Objectives 2020 to 2024, we’ve:

• continued to develop support for decision-makers
• created infrastructures to effectively deliver, and account for, equality, diversity and inclusion as business as usual across HMRC

We have plans to deliver improved equality, diversity and inclusion governance in 2022 to 2023.

Inclusive decision making

In 2021 to 2022, we’ve continued to improve the structures for ensuring our decision-making includes as far as possible the different perspectives and needs of our diverse workforce, as well as considers the impact on different groups. We have therefore built on the refreshed approach to ‘equality impact’ assessments and updated guidance. Our guidance offers:

• a step-by-step overview on how to apply our inclusive decision-making principles
• templates for doing equality impact assessments

We’ve also worked on a large-scale initiative to establish and implement standards for change governance in HMRC. This will give colleagues who work on internal and external changes guidance to the relevant considerations and legal compliance requirements, which includes equality impact assessments.

Advisory boards

In 2020 to 2021, we supported HMRC business groups to establish advisory boards. These are made up of colleagues from all grade levels, often with a focus on bringing in colleagues from ethic minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. It gives them the opportunity to offer senior leaders their expertise, experience and wider perspectives. It also helps develop a succession of skilled and experienced colleagues who are currently underrepresented in leadership positions. Advisory boards have become established and are now more widely used across HMRC. They have:

• successfully offered insights and challenge from a colleague perspective
• shaped the development of initiatives at an early stage
• given views on the written papers to senior leaders which accompany meetings where decisions are made
• offered an objective view to senior leaders, when considering options and conditions for successful delivery

We continue to review the need for standalone advisory boards and monitor representation and diversity in our senior leadership and decision-making processes at the highest levels.

Race Equality Delivery

In 2020 to 2021, HMRC appointed a Race Equality Delivery Director with a team to help deliver race equality across HMRC. The programme supports departmental, regional and business group-level actions so that colleagues, particularly senior leaders, take responsibility for race equality and bring about change.

This programme has a governance process in place, which includes a Programme Board of senior HMRC stakeholders and representatives from HMRC’s Race Network, and a working-level Checkpoint and Challenge Panel.

The programme has a data-driven approach and emphasises the need for high-quality data to find solutions that positively impact on our ethnic minority colleagues’ lived experience.

Throughout 2020 to 2021, the programme team worked and supported many initiatives and activities that aimed to address disparities in staff and recruitment data. For example, the uneven distribution of ethnic minority colleagues across grades or regions. The team worked across HMRC to put action plans in place. Governance is continually improved to track key delivery milestones and ensure race equality.

The programme supported HMRC business groups and regions, to set measures for improving the ethnic diversity of the workforce. This included analysing group or regional-level diversity data to identify areas that need positive action and hold directors accountable for delivering these plans.

We compiled ‘best-practice’ race equality interventions and activities from our business groups and shared it with business areas and regions to exchange ideas for more action. The team supported the North East Deep Dive and the roll-out of deep dives in other regions.

The programme delivery team also supported improvements to internal guidance for colleagues, including those who have experienced racial abuse, and on a message to warn customers that abuse of HMRC staff will not be tolerated. The Race Equality Delivery Director also formed a cross-government working group to share best practice and create mutual benefits from successful initiatives.

Understanding ethnic minority representation in our regional centres: the North East

In June 2021, HMRC’s Executive Committee agreed to look at recruitment, retention and progression of ethnic minority colleagues in different regional centres:

• Newcastle
• Croydon
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Glasgow
• Cardiff

We began with a specific project understand the situation and possible solutions for the North East.

The North East Deep Dive has several phases, including analysing assumptions and discovering data, with trial activities for attracting new and developing existing talent. In September 2021, the discovery phase brought together internal and external perspectives, voices, data, insight and experience, to understand how Newcastle Regional Centre could:

• better reflect the ethnic minority labour market in the North East
• contribute to regional representation targets, by March 2024

Part of the deep dive was the Talent and Career Development Survey. We gained more understanding of the views and experiences of 1,000 colleagues in the North East about their career progression and development opportunities.

Executive Committee (ExCom) Diversity Champions

Members of ExCom carry the overall responsibility for HMRC meeting its legal and strategic objectives. ExCom consists of the most senior civil servants in HMRC. Their leadership on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is key for creating change.

A number of ExCom members are Diversity Champions, either for HMRC or for the Civil Service. Specifically, we have ExCom Diversity Champions for age, carers, disability, gender, LGBT+, race, religion or belief, social mobility, wellbeing, and EU nationals.

They supported cultural change through communications and by attending colleague events. They worked closely with the central HR EDI team and diversity staff networks, to align HMRC’s and cross-government’s priorities and communications.

Diversity staff networks and consultation groups

Diversity staff networks are run by HMRC staff who work in partnership with the department to help create and maintain an inclusive, diverse, and respectful organisation. These networks provide a forum for colleagues to discuss their personal experiences in HMRC, provide insight, and help develop solutions that promote inclusion.

Diversity networks are important, as they help HMRC meet its targets on equality, diversity and inclusion. In 2021 to 2022, they delivered a number of voluntary events and communications, to:

• raise awareness
• create support among the HMRC colleagues
• celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace

Diversity networks have their own governing structure of regional representatives and sub-working groups. We have staff networks for:

• carers
• disability
• gender
• race
• LGBT+
• EU Nationals
• social mobility

There are also 2 consultation groups on age and religion or belief. The central HR team works with the networks, their chairs and committee members, to align priorities and work together to deliver them. We’ve continued to work on creating a consistent framework for governance and accountability.

Data quality and transparency

We want our workforce to reflect the diversity of the customers and communities it serves. To understand the diversity of our workforce across the business, we ask colleagues to voluntarily report their equality characteristics through our online HR system. We’ve strengthened the quality, and particularly the transparency of this data through our People Data Strategy. This helps us to develop an evidence-based approach to achieving equality, inclusion and fair treatment across HMRC.

In 2021 to 2022, we published quarterly diversity data packs (fully anonymised) on our intranet. This was accessible to all staff, and gave information about the workforce by region, directorate, job grade and diversity characteristics.

As part of the People Data Strategy, we’re developing an enhanced diversity tool to make diversity data more readily accessible to colleagues and make accountability easier. We’ll launch this tool in 2022 to 2023 after consulting with HMRC’s business groups, HR teams and equality, diversity and inclusion experts.

Representation rates

We monitor diversity in our workforce through representation rates, which measure the percentage of staff, either overall or at specific grades, who have a particular characteristic. We’ve set overall HMRC targets for:

• disability (15% of all staff)
• ethnic minority (15% of all staff)
• lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual orientation (6% of all staff)
• women in senior civil servant (SCS) roles (50%)

Table 3: Workforce representation rates for disability, ethnic minority, lesbian, gay, bisexual or other sexual orientation (LGBO) and senior civil servant (SCS) women, 2019 to 2022

Note: the data excludes colleagues who did not provide their diversity data and colleagues who recorded ‘choose not to say’.

	March 2019	March 2020	March 2021	March 2022
Disability	13.9%	13.8%	13.5%	13.4%
Ethnic minority	12.9%	13.8%	14.7%	17.1%
Lesbian, gay, bisexual or ‘other’	4.9%	5.3%	5.7%	6.3%
Women – Senior Civil Servants (SCS)	46.7%	45.8%	45.4%	46.5%

Table 3 shows our representation rates from March 2019 to March 2022. We have increased the number of colleagues with an ethnic minority background and colleagues with a lesbian, gay, bisexual or other sexual orientation.

Declaration rates

Good quality data is important for developing evidence-based approaches. One factor in this, is the rate at which colleagues declare their relevant characteristics such as ethnicity and disability status. The higher this rate is, the more reliable our diversity data. We aim to reach an 85% declaration rate for each of our relevant data fields.

Declaration rates vary for each of the characteristics, mainly because we introduced the questions at different times. For example, in 2021 to 2022, we started reporting on newly introduced questions about colleagues’ socio-economic background.

Table 4: HMRC’s diversity declaration rates at March 2020, March 2021 and March 2022

	Declaration rate at March 2019	Declaration rate at March 2020	Declaration rate at March 2021	Declaration rate at March 2022
Care for school-aged child	15%	27%	31%	42%
Care for disabled person	15%	27%	31%	41%
Disability	71%	70%	69%	72%
Ethnicity	79%	78%	76%	78%
Gender reassignment	16%	27%	32%	43%
Religion or belief	58%	59%	59%	64%
Sexual orientation	66%	66%	66%	69%
Socio-economic background status	-	-	-	23%

All figures rounded to the nearest %.

To increase our declaration rates we ran communications campaigns, kept guidance up to date and encouraged new joiners to fill in their diversity data. We reinforced calls for completion of diversity data throughout our communications, including in updates from senior leaders. We continued to emphasise confidentiality and data protection compliance to increase colleagues’ trust in our diversity data collection.

Evidence-based working

In February 2022, the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022 to 2025 was published. This emphasises the importance of data-driven and evidence-based solutions and interventions, such as monitoring and evaluating impact and outcomes. HMRC is committed to evidence-based approaches to improve equality, diversity and inclusion. This will improve our reporting and decision-making.

In 2021 to 2022, we developed and integrated these approaches. For example, we’re doing more work on discovering disparities experienced by colleagues, based on their diversity characteristics. We’ll deliver this in 2022 to 2023. Our equality, diversity and inclusion experts continue to work closely with analysts to collect and analyse data. We’ve also provided internal learning and development to embed evidence-based ways of working, including information capability modules for HR.

Communicating our inclusive culture

Our communications online and in estates continue to emphasise the importance of building an inclusive, representative and respectful culture in HMRC. We work with diversity champions and networks, business areas and regions, to deliver this.

Campaigns

As in previous years, our communications campaigns highlighted:

• the diversity in our organisation
• the progress we’ve made together
• where we need to improve our colleagues’ experiences

One important example in 2021 to 2022 was our International Women’s Day campaign. This led to membership of the Gender Network doubling to over 1,000. We also supported the Civil Service equality, diversity and inclusion agenda. For example, we delivered an internal campaign to launch the new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Celebrating equality, diversity and inclusion

Throughout 2021 to 2022, we continued to use national events and campaigns to:

• promote awareness of the different aspects of diversity and inclusion and celebrate this
• share colleagues’ personal stories around inclusion that contribute to an inclusive culture
• highlight that an inclusive environment is something that is built by, and for the benefit of, all of us

Our newly-opened regional centres have brought inclusivity, particularly for colleagues with disabilities, prominently into our estates. We captured all elements of our accessible design in an ‘Inclusive Design Guide’ after having consulted with industry organisations and HMRC’s Disability Network. Our internal communications team have also refreshed our image library to better reflect our workforce and the society we serve.

Inspiring allyship

Our senior leadership and ExCom diversity champions support HMRC in maintaining momentum as we create an inclusive, representative and respectful workplace. Senior leaders took part in various sessions, where frank conversations with colleagues helped them better understand and act on the experiences of diverse groups in HMRC.

The role of allyship in the delivery of equality, diversity and inclusion featured prominently in our communications and activity. Allyship is part of diversity staff network development, with LGBT+ allies being one example. Allyship was also central to the delivery of our Race Equality Workshops (see above), with many allies helping to run workshops. We also launched an ‘inclusive conversations’ guide to help colleagues conduct conversations that support, and are meaningful to, all staff.

Appendix: Declaration and representation

The following tables show HMRC’s workforce representation rates for each protected characteristic and grade, as at March 2022.

Declaration rates include colleagues that selected the ‘choose not to declare’ option.

The known representation rate reflects the proportion of colleagues identifying as having a particular diversity characteristic, as a proportion of all colleagues who have declared their diversity data in this category.

We use data labels that reflect self-reported diversity characteristics, grouped into administrative categories of employees:

• ‘ethnic minority’ includes Black, Asian, Chinese and mixed ethnic background categories
• currently, our white ethnic minority colleagues have the option to tick ‘Any other ethnic group’ or ‘White – any white background’. The former would fall under our category of ‘ethnic minority’
• ‘white’ includes any white background, including white ethnic minority colleagues if they’ve chosen this label
• ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Other’ includes people who categorised their sexual orientation as gay man, gay woman/lesbian, bisexual or ‘other’
• we use a question on ‘gender reassignment’ and a question on self-declared gender to understand the number of our trans and non-binary colleagues

Data marked with an asterisk (*) instead of a percentage has been suppressed for data protection. This indicates that the number of people in a group is less than 10.

Table A: Representation and declaration rates by disability

	Disabled	Non-disabled	Chose not to declare	Not known	% Known disabled (Target 15%)	% Disability Declaration (Target 85%)
HMRC overall	9.0%	58.2%	4.7%	28.0%	13.4%	72.0%
Senior Civil Service	5.0%	78.0%	4.0%	13.0%	5.9%	86.9%
Grade 6	8.0%	71.0%	6.0%	15.0%	10.0%	84.6%
Grade 7	9.0%	67.0%	6.0%	18.0%	11.9%	82.0%
Senior Officer	9.0%	67.0%	5.0%	19.0%	11.7%	81.0%
Higher Officer	9.0%	61.0%	5.0%	25.0%	12.8%	75.2%
Officer	9.0%	57.0%	4.0%	30.0%	13.0%	70.0%
Administrative Officer	10.0%	49.0%	4.0%	37.0%	16.4%	62.6%
Administrative Assistant	14.0%	47.0%	5.0%	34.0%	23.2%	65.8%

Table B. Representation and declaration rates by ethnicity

	Ethnic minority	White	Chose not to declare	Not known	% Known ethnic minority (Target 15%)	% Ethnicity Declaration (Target 85%)
HMRC overall	12.7%	61.8%	3.6%	21.9%	17.1%	78.1%
Senior Civil Service	10.0%	76.0%	4.0%	11.0%	11.2%	89.1%
Grade 6	8.0%	75.0%	5.0%	11.0%	9.8%	88.6%
Grade 7	11.0%	71.0%	5.0%	13.0%	13.5%	87.3%
Senior Officer	12.0%	70.0%	5.0%	13.0%	14.1%	86.6%
Higher Officer	15.0%	62.0%	4.0%	19.0%	19.3%	80.9%
Officer	14.0%	60.0%	3.0%	24.0%	18.9%	76.5%
Administrative Officer	12.0%	55.0%	3.0%	30.0%	17.9%	69.7%
Administrative Assistant	4.0%	68.0%	4.0%	24.0%	6.0%	76.1%

Table C: Representation and declaration rates by sexual orientation

	Lesbian, gay, bisexual and ‘other’	Heterosexual	Chose not to declare	Not known	% Known lesbian, gay, bisexual and other (target 6%)	% Sexual Orientation Declaration (Target 85%)
HMRC overall	4.0%	58.4%	6.8%	30.8%	6.3%	69.2%
Senior Civil Service	5.0%	72.0%	7.0%	16.0%	6.9%	84.2%
Grade 6	4.0%	70.0%	8.0%	18.0%	5.7%	82.5%
Grade 7	4.0%	68.0%	8.0%	19.0%	6.1%	80.6%
Senior Officer	3.0%	67.0%	8.0%	21.0%	4.9%	79.1%
Higher Officer	4.0%	62.0%	7.0%	27.0%	6.6%	73.4%
Officer	4.0%	57.0%	6.0%	32.0%	6.8%	67.7%
Administrative Officer	4.0%	49.0%	6.0%	42.0%	6.7%	58.3%
Administrative Assistant	2.0%	41.0%	7.0%	49.0%	5.3%	50.7%

Table D: Declaration rates for religion and belief

	Specific religion or belief declared	Chose not to declare	Not known	Known religion or belief declaration rate (Target 85%)
HMRC overall	57.5%	6.9%	35.6%	64.4%
Senior Civil Service	74.0%	8.0%	18.0%	81.7%
Grade 6	69.0%	9.0%	23.0%	77.2%
Grade 7	67.0%	8.0%	24.0%	75.7%
Senior Officer	65.0%	9.0%	26.0%	73.8%
Higher Officer	61.0%	8.0%	31.0%	68.7%
Officer	57.0%	6.0%	37.0%	63.3%
Administrative Officer	48.0%	5.0%	46.0%	53.5%
Administrative Assistant	40.0%	5.0%	56.0%	44.4%

Table E: Representation rates for religion and belief, of colleagues who declared a religion or belief

	Buddhist	Christian	Hindu	Jewish	Muslim	Sikh	Other	None
HMRC overall	0.4%	45.5%	2.0%	0.2%	8.1%	1.4%	2.7%	39.8%

Table F: Representation and declaration rates of colleagues who care for a disabled person

	Yes	No	Not known	% care for a disabled person declaration
HMRC overall	8.7%	32.5%	58.8%	41.2%
Senior Civil Service	14.0%	48.0%	38.0%	61.9%
Grade 6	11.0%	40.0%	49.0%	51.2%
Grade 7	11.0%	38.0%	52.0%	48.3%
Senior Officer	10.0%	35.0%	55.0%	45.4%
Higher Officer	9.0%	35.0%	57.0%	43.5%
Officer	8.0%	33.0%	59.0%	41.3%
Administrative Officer	8.0%	27.0%	65.0%	34.5%
Administrative Assistant	8.0%	15.0%	77.0%	22.7%

Table G: Representation and declaration rates of colleagues who care for a school-aged child

	Yes	No	Not known	% care for a school-aged child declaration
HMRC overall	11.4%	30%	58.5%	41.5%
Senior Civil Service	29.0%	35.0%	37.0%	63.0%
Grade 6	21.0%	31.0%	48.0%	51.9%
Grade 7	17.0%	32.0%	51.0%	49.0%
Senior Officer	15.0%	30.0%	55.0%	45.4%
Higher Officer	12.0%	32.0%	56.0%	44.2%
Officer	10.0%	31.0%	59.0%	41.5%
Administrative Officer	8.0%	27.0%	66.0%	34.3%
Administrative Assistant	4.0%	18.0%	79.0%	21.4%

Table H: Representation rate by sex

	Female	Male
HMRC overall	52.4%	47.6%
Senior Civil Service	47.0%	53.0%
Grade 6	44.0%	56.0%
Grade 7	45.0%	55.0%
Senior Officer	50.0%	50.0%
Higher Officer	48.0%	52.0%
Officer	53.0%	47.0%
Administrative Officer	59.0%	41.0%
Administrative Assistant	65.0%	35.0%

Table J: Representation rate by age group

	16-29	30-39	40-49	50-59	60+
HMRC overall	17.4%	23.1%	21.7%	27.8%	10.1%
Senior Civil Service	*	11.0%	35.0%	47.0%	7.0%
Grade 6	1.0%	18.0%	31.0%	41.0%	9.0%
Grade 7	8.0%	26.0%	27.0%	33.0%	6.0%
Senior Officer	8.0%	22.0%	26.0%	35.0%	8.0%
Higher Officer	17.0%	29.0%	22.0%	24.0%	7.0%
Officer	22.0%	24.0%	19.0%	24.0%	10.0%
Administrative Officer	23.0%	18.0%	19.0%	27.0%	13.0%
Administrative Assistant	*	4.0%	15.0%	40.0%	39.0%

Table K: Representation rate by gender

Question	Non-binary	Self-describe	Female	Male	Prefer not to say	Not known	Overall declaration rate
How do you identify?	0.1%	0.1%	23.7%	20.6%	1.4%	54.1%	45.9%

Question	Yes	No	Prefer not to say	Not known	Overall declaration rate
Are you intending to undergo, are you undergoing or have undergone any form of gender reassignment/affirmation?	0.1%	41.2%	1.4%	57.3%	42.7%