The number of full-time employees (FTE) of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who are focussed on quality, diversity, or inclusivity issues

Request

Your request is copied below:

1. The number of roles across all components of the organisation, expressed in numbers of full-time employees (FTE), that are mainly or exclusively focussed on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. This information should encompass all staff employed by the organisation, regardless of their geographical location.

Roles meeting this description could include (amongst other guises) “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer” (EDI) or “Diversity and Inclusion Project Managers”. Please break down, if possible, the number of roles per component part of the department’s operations.

For all roles meeting this description, please also provide, in order of preference, either a) the salary of these roles, b) the pay band of these roles, or c) the combined total salary of these roles. Please provide the information that is most in accordance with your data processing practices.

Please also advise if the organisation has any plans to hire further staff in these areas within the next 18 months, and the roles/pay bands that they are likely to occupy.

2. With the same criteria as above, please provide the number of internal training courses attended by staff which pertain to the issues encompassed by equality, diversity or inclusivity. Please include the name of the courses, the number of attendees, and the duration of the course.
3. Please, if possible, provide details of any internal EDI practices and networks, including the number of individuals who are members of such networks.
4. Please provide details of any external contractors brought in by the organisation to conduct training, advice, or guidance on issues relating to EDI. Where applicable this should include costs and associated manhours.
5. Please provide details of how equality, diversity and inclusivity is included in your procurement practices, the relative weight afforded to these considerations, and the current value of contracts in which EDI considerations was a part of the procurement process.

Response

1. The information you have requested at point one is set out below. The salary range listed is for each individual role.

The CPS has five Full Time Equivalent (FTE) roles in the Head Quarters Human Resources Directorate whose roles are wholly focused on internal facing diversity and inclusion activities.

In addition, the CPS has 16 external facing Inclusion and Engagement Managers who work to ensure delivery of our public confidence and community inclusion strategy. They are geographically dispersed and aligned to each CPS Area.

The CPS currently has no plans to recruit additional staff over and above the roles above.

2. The information you have requested at point two is set out below. Data is provided for training courses attended from 1 April 2024 to date.

3. The information you have requested at point three is set out below.

4. The information you have requested at point four is set out below for the period 1 April 2024 to date. The CPS is unable to determine work hours for this information.

5. The majority of CPS procurements are conducted through central Framework agreements that are let and managed by other public contracting authorities, in particular Crown Commercial Service (CCS). This means the CPS choice of supplier is (where we select a framework route to market) dependent on who CCS (and/or other Framework Authority’s) have selected as their registered Service Providers. 

CCS do encourage smaller suppliers (SME’s and VCSE’s) to participate in their agreements and this is explained in their action plan: Crown Commercial Service SME Action Plan - GOV.UK at gov.uk. SME means Small Medium Enterprise which an ethnically diverse supplier would be a subcategory of. VCSE’s are the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector. When using the central agreements, we typically engage on a competitive basis i.e. invite all suitable suppliers listed on that agreement to participate and then award to the bidder that represents best value for money. We treat all suppliers equally; we do not give any suppliers a higher score because of their organisation’s characteristics such as smaller size or ethnically diverse ownership.

When awarding in scope contracts CPS utilises the government’s Social Value model to inform the award criteria. This model is used to take account of the additional social benefits that can be achieved in the delivery of public contracts, using policy outcomes aligned with government priorities. This approach should encourage a bidder to offer opportunities including supporting smaller businesses in their supply chain as well as other initiatives.

The only procurements where CPS could reserve participation to certain supplier types are those outside of central agreements which are below the applicable regulatory threshold which is currently £138,760 inclusive of VAT. Applying the reservation is considered on a procurement-by-procurement basis in accordance with government policy. CPS has yet to reserve a below threshold procurement because a suitable requirement has yet to be identified.

The Government does implement measures to remove barriers to public procurement though such initiatives including simplification and standardisation. This forms part of the ‘SME agenda’ and examples of which include government guidance to assist SMEs and the VCSE sector to participate in public procurements. The Government Commercial Function (GCF) has a Supplier Code of Conduct which encourages diversity and it is something CPS commercial promotes in its documentation.