Corporate report

Voluntary reporting on disability, mental health and wellbeing in Defra: September 2019

Published 27 September 2019

In November 2018 the government launched a new framework to encourage businesses to report how many of their staff have a disability or health condition, and also to report on the health and wellbeing of staff. The framework is voluntary, and was created in partnership with employers and charities. The Civil Service as a whole currently reports against the framework in full - this report provides Defra’s latest report in accordance with the guidance for voluntary reporting. This is the first time reporting against the framework and views are welcome on other content, indicators etc.

1. Introduction from Dianne Jeans, Defra Senior Wellbeing Champion

In Defra we are committed to providing a working environment that supports the wellbeing of our people.

As the domestic Department most impacted by EU Exit we have seen an increased spotlight on our employees’ health and wellbeing during a period of intense activity. Creating a ‘virtual team’ of stakeholders working across disciplines and functions including HR, Safety, Health & Wellbeing, Defra group Property and Internal Comms we have been able to address the issues that impact on employees in a holistic and joined up approach developing a specific organisational wellbeing and resilience action plan.

Wellbeing and a positive workplace culture is created by senior leaders, managers and colleagues with the support of functions, programmes and initiatives. We have taken the opportunity to build on the work and continue to align the functions, programmes and initiatives that together will support the wellbeing agenda.

We recently launched an employee led ‘Be Kind’ badge campaign developed by a group of staff after seeing the pressure everyone has been under and recognising the tension that this can create around any workplace. The badges are a simple visible reminder to us all to treat others well and to seek to understand each other.

2. Defra voluntary reporting on Disability

2.1 What we are doing?

Defra is committed to having a truly diverse workforce that represents the communities that we live in and serve, providing and creating a culture where everyone can bring their whole self to work, can use their whole range of talents and their uniqueness is truly valued.

The Defra Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy identifies the priorities and actions that Defra will take to do this and includes the priority to ensure that our recruitment methods are effective in recruiting a diverse workforce.

In late 2017, Defra, and its Executive Agencies^{[footnote 1]}, achieved Level 3 status as a Disability Confident Employer, the highest level under the government’s Disability Confident Scheme. This scheme aims to help employers successfully employ and retain disabled people and those with health conditions.

Employees within Defra are supported by several disability networks including DISNET (Disability network), Neurodiversity, Mental Health and Cancer Networks. A Stammering network, and Carers network have also been established in the last year to give further support. These networks also work closely with Defra ALBs who have additional networks for specific disabilities and also with cross government networks ensuring that knowledge and experience is shared across the wider organization and government.

Defra policies support people with disabilities in recruitment and employment. There is a Guaranteed Interview scheme to ensure that disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for a role will be offered an interview. A Workplace Adjustments process to support employees at interview and in their day to day working, this includes the use of Workplace Adjustments passports.

Defra is an active member of the Business Disability Forum (BDF) and works closely with them to reinforce our commitment to employees with a disability, impairment or long term medical condition.

2.2 The latest data and direction of travel

Key indicators

Numbers are rounded to the nearest ten, and cells containing between one and five employees are represented by “..”.

	Disabled	Non-disabled	Not declared*	Not reported***	Total	All employees with known disability status	Disabled employees as percentage of known disability status*****
Core-Defra	250	1,380	30	2,000	3,660	1,630	-
APHA	250	1,050	70	820	2,200	1,300	19.4
Cefas	30	310	10	270	610	340	8.9
RPA	180	1,370	40	20	1,600	1,550	11.6
VMD	..	70	10	80	160	80	..

Table key:

*: Not declared accounts for employees who have actively declared that they do not want to disclose their disability status.

***: Not reported accounts for employees who have not made an active declaration about their disability status.

*****: Where known disability status is less than 50% of total employees, ‘Disabled employees as a percentage of known disability status’ is represented by “-“.

Data taken from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey on the ONS website.

The data above shows a picture of those employees who have declared their disability status. The reason for the high numbers in Defra who have not reported is likely to be because of high levels of new employees into the EU Exit activities over the preceding year and also the transfer of employees from the Environment Agency as part of the Corporate Services transfer who might not have recompleted their diversity information.

Across Defra and its Executive Agencies from 2016 to 2018 there has been a slight increase in the numbers of disabled employees as a percentage of known disability status.

In referencing longer term change, back to the fixed point of 2014 where information is available, Defra and its Executive Agencies have increased the number of disabled employees as a percentage of known disability status. The exception to this is the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and this relates to the way that disability information is recorded in their HR system which automatically assumes that an employee is not disabled unless they make a declaration to say that they are.

Each year we have a ‘self-disclosure’ campaign to encourage all employees to share their diversity information on the HR systems. In February/March 2019, this was a successful campaign and this should be reflected in the next year’s Employment Survey statistics.

3. Defra voluntary reporting on Mental Health and Wellbeing:

3.1 What we are doing?

We take a holistic approach linking employee health and wellbeing with our health and safety agenda. Defra has a legal duty under the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations to identify both physical and psychological risks to harm and put measures into place to minimise work-related ill health and injury. Our employee health and wellbeing themes, and priorities, align with the Civil Service Strategic Priorities for Health and Wellbeing:

• culture – visible leadership for health and wellbeing
• prevention – encouraging open dialogue on health and wellbeing risks and challenges, leading to action to prevent harm; promoting the benefits of safe and healthy working practices and lifestyles; and promoting national health and wellbeing campaigns
• intervention – supporting people to stay at or return to work

We have had an established employee health and wellbeing agenda for many years, but have further developed our response to ensure employees are supported through times of unprecedented pressure. To build confidence and trust among employees to disclose mental health issues we have:

• established a new network of business level Wellbeing Champions to encourage two way communication and share central messages and initiatives within their Directorates/teams
• set up a working group to review provision of Mental Health First Aid. The working group will ensure the role develops in line with possible changing legislation. It will also ensure that the risks are mitigated, communications on the process for contacting a MHFA are consistent and that needs analysis can be developed and utilised;
• published Blogs on various topics relevant both in the workplace and in our personal lives such as mindfulness, stress, diabetes, depression, volunteering and connecting, walking and physical health, eating disorders, and cervical cancer. The blogs have proved beneficial, generating comments and interaction between employees building support communities;
• we developed and delivered a regular programme of wellbeing related webinars on topics such as stress awareness, personal resilience, and tips for line managers to over 1000 employees
• we delivered Wellbeing Confident Leaders Sessions (based on the PERMA model, as part of a Civil Service wide initiative) to improve awareness and competence at our SCS and G6/7 events in Autumn 2018 reaching over 200 of our senior leaders representing xx% of our SCS workforce. Additionally we facilitated local delivery through Train the Trainer webinars encouraging teams at all levels to run their own sessions.
• we developed new simplified separate reporting processes to encourage employees to report cases of work-related stress. This enables the person to be signposted to appropriate support mechanisms in a consistent approach to follow up and review by both the Safety, Health & Wellbeing team and the line manager.

We continue to promote our ongoing services such as our Employee Assistance programme, Occupational Health Service, Ergonomic and Disability Support, and Corporate Eye Care contracts.

Additionally, our annual health kiosk (enabling employees to measure their weight, BMI, blood pressure etc.) visited over 30 locations from Sept 2018 to Jan 2019.

Our approach ensures that Defra adheres to both the core and enhanced standards as set out in the Thriving at Work (Stevenson / Farmer) review of mental health. Our self-assessment against the Thriving at Work standards is currently Green/Amber but this reflects our aspiration to continuously review and improve.

3.2 The latest data and direction of travel (Part B)

Key indicators

The data provided in this section relates to core-Defra only.

1. Personal wellbeing

The Office for National Statistics measures and publishes data on personal wellbeing across the UK on a quarterly basis. The statistics relate to three positive wellbeing measures – life satisfaction, sense of purpose “activities in life are worthwhile”, and happiness, along with one negative measure “anxiety”. These are the measures that should be reported:

• W01: Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? 66% answering high
• W02: Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? 71% answering high
• W03: Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? 60% answering high
• W04: Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? 36% answering low

2. PERMA Index

Since 2016 we have been monitoring an index of ‘flourishing’ by combining five Civil Service People Survey questions related to five dimensions of flourishing - Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. The first results were published in 2018 – but organisations can compute annual index scores going back to 2012.

• our PERMA Index has fluctuated but remains consistent over the past three years - this is positive and in line with expectations given the fluctuation in demands and resources over this period
• the response to ‘I believe Defra cares about my Wellbeing’ has remained constant over the last two years after a large increase in 2017

	2018	2017	2016
People survey PERMA index	73%	76%	73%
Positive score on ‘I believe my organisation cares about my Wellbeing’	69%	68%	54%
Positive ‘engagement’ score People Survey (Annual Results)	61%	61%	56%

		2018	2017	2016
Positive emotions	Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?	64	67	65
Engagement	I am interested in my work	83	83	81
Relationships	The people in my team can be relied upon to help when things get difficult in my job	80	81	80
Meaning	Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile?	67	71	69
Accomplishment	My work gives me a sense of personal accomplishment	73	79	72
	Total PERMA Index Score	73%	76%	73%

In context of the demands placed on the organisation and the increased staff numbers this is positive and is a reflection of the work undertaken across the Defra to raise awareness of the significance of Wellbeing.

3. HSE Proxy Stress Index

The proxy stress index is a combination of eight CSPS questions which reflect the HSE Stress Management Standards and gives a measure of the conditions which can lead to (or reduce) stress in the work place.

Organisational work related stress has been measured over time using our own Organisational Stress Risk Assessment calculation.

When comparing Defra’s responses to the Civil Service Median responses there is no significant statistical differences. This is encouraging given the demands placed upon Defra as one of the departments most impacted by preparations for ‘EU Exit’ over the past two years.

The Proxy Stress Index calculated on the People Survey was 29% for Defra. This was equal to the Civil Service median and is a 1% increase from 2017.

4. What are we doing next?

Looking ahead to 2019-2020 we have purchased the HSE Stress indicator tool which will help us to measure perceptions around work-related stress, and will be taking part in the Mind Wellbeing Index later this year (alongside EA and NE) to enable us to benchmark Defra’s performance against other organisations in both the public and private sectors.

Achieving a reduction in overall stress levels requires input from all in highlighting issues and utilising the appropriate routes of notification. At the point of promotion of the Mind Index and Stress indicator tool we will work across the organisation to ensure engagement at all levels.

We continue to seek parity between physical and psychological risks in all contexts and have taken steps to gain a greater insight into the root causes of these stressors by encouraging reporting of work-related stress cases, and engagement with our new network of business level wellbeing champions

1. Defra, RPA, APHA, Cefas and VMD ↩