Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have had any communication about Ms Kate Josephs, former Director General of the Covid Task Force, since she left that role, regarding the Cabinet Office leaving party she attended on 17 December 2020 with (1) Sheffield City Council, or (2) Ms Josephs; and on what dates any such communications took place.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
I refer the Hon. Member to the Cabinet Office update from the Second Permanent Secretary which has been published on GOV.UK and placed in the Library of the House.
It would not be appropriate for the Government to comment further while the Metropolitan Police Service’s investigation is ongoing. At the end of the process, the Prime Minister will ask the Second Permanent Secretary to update her findings, which will be published in line with the Terms of Reference.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have had any correspondence with Ms Kate Josephs, former Director General of the Covid Task Force, since she left role, regarding the Cabinet Office leaving party she attended on 17 December 2020; and if so, on what dates this correspondence took place.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
I refer the Hon. Member to the Cabinet Office update from the Second Permanent Secretary which has been published on GOV.UK and placed in the Library of the House.
It would not be appropriate for the Government to comment further while the Metropolitan Police Service’s investigation is ongoing. At the end of the process, the Prime Minister will ask the Second Permanent Secretary to update her findings, which will be published in line with the Terms of Reference.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Cabinet Office plan to issue new procurement guidance to exclude surveillance camera suppliers linked with (1) modern slavery, and (2) human rights violations; and whether this will apply to public bodies in the education sector.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Cabinet Office published in Procurement Policy Note 05/19 comprehensive commercial policy and guidance to identify and tackle modern slavery and labour abuse risks throughout the commercial life cycle. This advocates a risk based approach and applies to central government, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Other public sector contracting authorities may wish to apply the approach set out in this PPN.
This is being updated to strengthen the guidance on using the existing grounds in the Public Contracts Regulations for excluding suppliers, and will set out enhanced means of proof and due diligence activities. This will be published in due course.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who sent the email inviting people to the farewell gathering for Kate Josephs in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020; and on what date it was sent.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Terms of Reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published on GOV.UK and deposited in the libraries of both Houses. The work will be concluded by the Second Permanent Secretary.
The Government does not comment on the specifics of an ongoing process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any (1) ministers, (2) special advisers, (3) civil servants, from the Treasury attended the farewell gathering for Kate Josephs in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020; and if so, who.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Terms of Reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published on GOV.UK and deposited in the libraries of both Houses. The work will be concluded by the Second Permanent Secretary.
The Government does not comment on the specifics of an ongoing process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people attended the farewell gathering for Kate Josephs in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020; and whether any (1) ministers, or (2) special advisers, were present.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Terms of Reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published on GOV.UK and deposited in the libraries of both Houses. The work will be concluded by the Second Permanent Secretary.
The Government does not comment on the specifics of an ongoing process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they became aware of the farewell gathering for Kate Josephs in the Cabinet Office on 17 December 2020.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Terms of Reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published on GOV.UK and deposited in the libraries of both Houses. The work will be concluded by the Second Permanent Secretary.
The Government does not comment on the specifics of an ongoing process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what powers they have under Freedom of Information legislation to check, in the process of responding to an FOI request, a minister's private email address to see whether they have used it for government business.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Government’s position on the operation of Freedom of Information legislation in respect of private email accounts is set out in the ‘Guidance to departments on use of private emails,’ published in 2013 as outlined below:
‘The Freedom of Information Act and searches for information
9. The FoI Act allows people to request information; it does not give the requestor any power to dictate where the department should search for that information. It is for the department to consider where the information might be and to take reasonable steps to find it. As set out above, it is expected that Government business should be recorded on government record systems. It will generally be reasonable to search only within those systems when a request has been received.
10. Departmental searches in response to requests for information are the responsibility of individual departments. The FOI Act itself provides no express legal authority for departments to search another person’s private emails or other records for the purpose of responding to a request made under that Act. In exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary to ascertain whether there is Government information in an individual’s possession that is not accessible to Government. This should be done by approaching the individual in question and the department should be entitled to rely on that person’s answer. There would be no requirement on the department to inform the requestor that the question had been asked, or (if Government information had been privately stored) where any information was found though, as now, if the Information Commissioner’s office is involved, departments may be asked to explain the nature and extent of the searches conducted in order to reply to a request.’
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) what the annual budget is for the running of the Clearing House for Freedom of Information requests, and (2) to give a breakdown of that budget.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Freedom of Information requests dealt with by the Clearing House have not been from those working for publications in each year since its inception.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Clearing House function does not have full time members of staff, and its work is done by a small team of people in the FOI team, including the Deputy Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency, alongside their other day to day responsibilities. There is no separate budget for the Clearing House.
The Cabinet Office does not routinely capture data on the number of requests which are referred to the Clearing House. However, in 2020, Clearing House gave advice on 516 aggregated ‘round robins’ (requests made to more than one department and that have repeat characteristics); a small proportion of over 30,000 requests received by government departments in the same time period.
The Cabinet Office has referred requests to the Clearing House where appropriate and in line with the published criteria, which is available on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-and-freedom-of-information.
Information on Freedom of Information statistics is also published on gov.uk here - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.