Cabinet Office

Any payments received from the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme are disregarded from means tested benefit assessments. This means that compensation payments made through the Scheme will not adversely impact on the means tested benefits received by either infected or affected people.

Those currently on the Infected Blood Support Schemes will continue to receive their discretionary payments until they receive a compensation offer from IBCA. The compensation will take into account any discretionary payments received under the support schemes when calculating a compensation award.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 22nd April is attached.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 22nd April is attached.

We are reorganising the Cabinet Office into a more strategic, specialist, and smaller department as part of our plan to deliver £110 million in annual departmental expenditure savings by the 2028/29 financial year.

Salary data for the Civil Service is published annually as part of Civil Service Statistics, an Accredited Official Statistics release, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2024. The most recent estimated salary cost figures as at 31st March 2024 were provided in response to Peter Bedford MP’s question on 16th October 2024. Civil Service Statistics 2025 is due to be published on 30 July 2025.

The Cabinet Office does not hold information on the wage bill for the wider public sector.

The approvals process for new arm’s-length bodies (ALBs), including non-departmental public bodies, is outlined in the Public Bodies Handbook - Part 2. This is a jointly led process between the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.

The government is additionally conducting a review of all ALBs, including proposals for new ones, to assess them against four principles: (1) Ministers should have direct policy control over decisions that affect the public, (2) duplication across the state should be minimised, (3) stakeholder engagement is not sufficient rationale for an ALB, and (4) some advice should be independently delivered. This is part of the plan to streamline the state by closing, merging or repatriating public bodies into departments unless their separate existence can be justified.

It is important that any recommendations made by Advisory Assessment Panels, and any exchanges they have with Ministers, remain confidential to ensure the flow of free and frank advice during the public appointment process. To uphold this confidentiality, disclosure of such information would likely affect the effectiveness of central government and other public services and will therefore not be released.

The government believes pay and reward structures should incentivise expertise and high performance. The Cabinet Office is reviewing capability-based pay arrangements that already exist in the Civil Service to analyse their impact on organisations that have implemented such arrangements already.

The Neighbourhood Policing announcement was made by the government on 9 April. A link to the announcement made on 9 April can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-put-neighbourhood-bobbies-back-on-beat

The visit in question on 10 April was not an official government visit and therefore no civil service support was provided.

The Neighbourhood Policing announcement was made by the government on 9 April. A link to the announcement made on 9 April can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-put-neighbourhood-bobbies-back-on-beat

The visit in question on 10 April was not an official government visit and therefore no civil service support was provided.

I refer the Hon Member to my answer of 17 December 2024, Official Report, PQ 19408.

The Government is committed to supporting British businesses and the products they produce, ensuring they have the best opportunities to win UK public contracts and deliver high-quality goods and services.

Our new National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) encourages contracting authorities to consider how procurement can foster economic growth, support small businesses, strengthen UK supply chains and drive delivery of the Government’s Industrial Strategy and missions. We have also recently announced a package of further measures to demonstrate how central government will implement the NPPS, further helping British firms succeed.

Furthermore, our modern Industrial Strategy will set out how public procurement can support growth and investment in key sectors of the economy by encouraging innovation and the development of new technologies.

The Public Bodies Review Programme closed as planned on 31st March 2025, and we will no longer be tracking reviews proposed as part of this programme.

On the 7th of April 2025, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced a process to rapidly review every arms length body across government.

The full list of new arm’s-length bodies proposed by this government can be found in Baroness Anderson’s response to HL6032.

I refer the Hon Member to my answer of 10 March 2025, Official Report, PQ 34994.

For security reasons, any details that could lead to the identification of Government cars are not provided.

As set out in the Plan For Change, this Government’s first duty is to make the UK safer, more secure, and resilient against growing and interconnected threats.

The Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary has announced plans to restructure and reorganise the Cabinet Office to make it more efficient and more effective. This programme is currently underway.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.

The Baroness Monckton of Dallington Forest

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

16 April 2025

Dear Lady Monckton,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what assessment has been made of relative gross median earnings from full-time employment among (1) men aged 16 to 24 and (2) women aged 16 to 24 (HL6658).

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)[1], carried out in April each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the United Kingdom. ASHE is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs taken from HM Revenue and Customs' Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records.

The median gross weekly earnings in April 20241, which is the latest available data from ASHE, for men aged 16-24 in full-time employment2 was £535, and for women aged 16-24 in full-time employment2 it was £512.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

1Estimates for 2024 are provisional.

2Employees on adult rates whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence.

The Prime Minister announced on 25 February in the House that a single national security strategy would be published before the NATO summit in June 2025. A full terms of reference for the National Security Strategy will not be published, however the Strategy’s core aims are to:

• Cohere national security related reviews into a single narrative.

• Articulate the Government’s priorities in the national security space with the aim of making sure the country is safer, growing securely, and increasingly resilient against interconnected threats.

Relevant departments are currently considering the Committee’s concluding observations in detail. The Government will give written responses to three priority areas that the Committee has identified for specific follow-up by 2027.

The Government will respond to the rest of the recommendations before the UK’s next reporting cycle starts in 2030.

Dedicated claim managers are supporting individuals through the claim process and, depending on the data available to the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), there may be some instances in which more information is asked for to complete a claim. In those instances, IBCA may be able to help source that information to relieve the burden on the person making the claim. I visited the IBCA team led by Sir Robert Francis earlier this year. I saw how determined they are for compensation to be paid out to victims as soon as possible. Additionally, all claims managers employed since October 2024 have received three weeks of trauma-informed training for the role.

There are 6 full time equivalents working in standalone EDI roles. Otherwise, this information is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office.

The current contract’s duration is from 1st August 2023 to 31st July 2025 with a value of £110,000 excluding VAT. The contract was procured via Single Tender Action.

The Cabinet Office has published extensive risk-based policy and guidance for commercial teams to tackle labour rights abuses in UK and global supply chains. A Procurement Policy Note (PPN), which was recently updated in line with the Procurement Act, sets out instructions to departments on how to tackle modern slavery in supply chains at each stage of the commercial life-cycle. The government has also developed risk assessment tools and promotes e-learning for procurement officials.

The Act provides contracting authorities with stronger powers to exclude suppliers from public procurements where there is compelling evidence of modern slavery within their supply chains.

The Social Value Model has recently been updated to align to the missions, and where relevant and proportionate to do so, authorities can reward suppliers who provide good working conditions for staff working on public contracts

These are the devices reported by staff of the Cabinet Office as lost since July 5th 2024. Some of these devices may have been found since their initial reporting.

It has been the practice of successive Administrations not to comment on the security arrangements of protected individuals.

As a UK Civil Service department, the Cabinet Office only formally observes the government-set bank holidays.

The scope of the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme’s supplementary route is in line with the recommendations Sir Robert Francis KC made to the Government in August 2024.

In his report, Sir Robert discussed the merits of expanding the supplementary route to heads of loss beyond care and financial loss. Sir Robert concluded it would likely be disproportionate for applicants and the scheme to do so and the supplementary route should instead focus on recognising the substantive additional care needs and financial loss of applicants.

The Government accepted Sir Robert’s recommendation that, with the exception of autonomy awards to victims of unethical research, supplementary route awards should only be available for care and financial loss.

In December 2024, the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) began making payments to people who are infected and as of 24 April, over £78 million has been paid in compensation. In March Parliament approved Regulations to give the IBCA the power to make payments to people who are affected as a result of the Infected Blood Scandal. The Government expects IBCA to begin making payments to people who are affected before the end of this year.

The Supreme Court’s ruling has brought clarity and confidence for women and single-sex services providers. The Government will work closely with the EHRC as they develop definitive guidance. All government departments should follow the clarity the ruling provides.

We are restoring confidence in government and the highest standards in public life and have already taken steps to improve probity and transparency, including through issuing a new Ministerial Code which highlights the importance of the principles of public life, by strengthening the terms of reference for the Independent Adviser, and by introducing a new monthly Register of Gifts and Hospitality.

There has been no change to the allocation of the flats in Admiralty House since my Noble Friend’s answer of 17 December 2024, Official Report, HL2901.

In line with the approach under previous administrations, the Government does not publish specific responsibilities of individual special advisers in the Annual Report on Special Advisers.

I refer the Hon. member to the answer to PQ 5306.

As per the guidance in the Mobile Device Management policy, we take a careful controlled approach to TikTok usage on government devices to safeguard all government activity. Access is strictly limited to essential purposes only. The existing policy regarding TikTok on government devices remains unchanged.

The Prime Minister met with Adolescence creators, charities and young people to discuss the issues raised in the series during a meeting focused on rethinking adolescent safety. The group met to discuss the challenges facing children and parents today, and how the Government can ensure young people have the right tools, support and environment to learn about healthy relationships.

The UK civil service is made up of civil servants employed at over 100 Ministerial and Non-Ministerial Departments, Executive Agencies and Crown NDPBs. These are listed and published each quarter by Office for National Statistics at Table 9 of their quarterly public sector employment statistics available at the following web address:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/datasets/publicsectoremploymentreferencetable

There is no standalone Cabinet Office policy or guidance that addresses the declaration of political interests of third parties when recording official videos.

Any use of departmental premises by Ministers for speeches should be an appropriate use of government resources.

There are no policies that exist in respect of asexual and/or aromantic staff specifically.

As said in my previous answer of 8 January 2025, the Cabinet Office maintains records and oversight of formally established arm’s-length bodies, including executive agencies, non-ministerial departments and non-departmental public bodies. No ALBs have been formally established since 4 July 2024. Records for public corporations and publicly-owned companies are held at departmental level.

The Board is no longer a standing body with formal membership. Former members of the Research Advisory Board were appointed by the Committee’s membership at that time.

The Board is no longer a standing body with formal membership. Former members of the Research Advisory Board were appointed by the Committee’s membership at that time.

Government integrity data is already published in a format which can be exported. The government publishes this data in CSV files in an accessible open data format, as per the standard and best practice guidance from the Government Digital Service and Central Digital and Data Office. In addition, since January, data on ministers’ gifts and hospitality has been published in one central register.

The government does not have current plans to make any further changes to how this data is published.