AQO 1444/22-27

Ms Connie Egan
Alliance Party
North Down

Tabled Date: 16/01/2025
Answered On Date: 28/01/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Finance for her assessment of the effectiveness of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Dignity at Work policy.

Answer:

The Civil Service is committed to creating and sustaining an environment where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

The Dignity at Work policy effectively supports this aim by making staff aware of the types of behaviour that might cause offence, highlighting the sources of information and assistance available and the informal and formal procedures for dealing with inappropriate behaviour.

The effectiveness of the Dignity at Work policy is evidenced by:

the relatively low number of civil servants who have raised formal dignity at work complaints in each of the past three financial years when set against total staff numbers of 24,000, and

the success of the in-house mediation service which enabled informal resolution in 95% of mediations and avoided cases progressing to formal dignity at work complaints.