Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, whether she plans to allocate additional resources to the Parliamentary Capability Team.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Parliamentary Capability Team sits within the Cabinet Office as part of the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit, and is a small group of expert civil servants bolstered by secondments from Parliament. Their training is designed in partnership with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Leaders and Government Whips Offices in both Houses, and departmental parliamentary and legislative teams. The critical nature of the work is recognised and the capacity of the team will be reviewed in the context of the Civil Service HR review, which is overseen by the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, whether each Government department has a parliamentary champion.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The role of parliamentary champion exists in 18 ministerial departments to provide senior leadership, support and visibility for work to build parliamentary capability in the department. The Cabinet Office's parliamentary champion and Parliamentary Capability Team support the work of the parliamentary champions.
Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what percentage of eligible officials in each government department have received training from the Parliamentary Capability Team.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The table below provides total numbers of attendees, by department at Parliamentary Capability Team (PCT) training events since August 2017 (when the team was created). Training is open to all civil servants, but efforts are made to focus resources on those in roles that interact directly and indirectly with Parliament - including policy officials, and those directly supporting ministers.
Data under ‘cross-government/unspecified’ relates to attendance at events not arranged by the PCT, such as the annual Civil Service Live programme, and as part of other civil service initiatives such as the Fast Stream and Policy Profession programmes.
Attorney General's Office | 84 |
Cabinet Office | 2523 |
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy | 1344 |
Department for Culture, Media & Sport | 2061 |
Department for Education | 869 |
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs | 2214 |
Department for Exiting the European Union | 243 |
Department for International Development | 29 |
Department for International Trade | 819 |
Department for Transport | 5477 |
Department for Work and Pensions | 1642 |
Department of Health and Social Care | 968 |
Foreign and Commonwealth & Development Office | 279 |
Government Legal Department | 96 |
HM Revenue & Customs | 1399 |
HM Treasury | 908 |
Home Office | 1637 |
Ministry of Defence | 717 |
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government | 621 |
Ministry of Justice | 1206 |
Northern Ireland Office | 86 |
Prime Ministers Office | 3 |
Scotland Office | 50 |
Wales Office | 16 |
Charity Commission | 6 |
Companies House | 7 |
Crown Prosecution Service | 10 |
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) | 39 |
Food Standards Agency (FSA) | 285 |
Forestry Commission of England and Wales | 3 |
GCHQ | 10 |
Government Equalities Office | 114 |
Health and Safety Executive | 87 |
Infected Blood Inquiry | 5 |
Intellectual Property Office | 40 |
MHRA | 5 |
National Archives | 2 |
NHS | 2 |
Office for National Statistics (ONS) | 104 |
Ofgem | 54 |
Ofsted | 7 |
Public Health England (PHE) | 117 |
Regulator of Social Housing | 1 |
Scottish Government | 10 |
UK Statistics Authority | 1 |
Valuation Office Agency | 5 |
Cross-Govt/ Unspecified | 4332 |
Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what work the Parliamentary Capability Team has been doing with government departments to ensure timely and quality responses to Written Parliamentary Questions and correspondence from MPs.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Parliamentary Capability Team (PCT) provides training on managing parliamentary work to civil servants of all departments and grades. As part of this work, it offers blended learning courses on Written Parliamentary Questions and Ministerial Correspondence, and tailored workshops for Senior Civil Servants (SCS) on these processes. Since April 2020, this training has been attended by 2,303 civil servants. The PCT also supports departmental parliamentary teams to develop training on department-specific processes for this work.
Over the course of the Summer recess, the former Deputy Leader of the House of Commons also visited multiple government departments with the PCT and spoke about the importance of departments providing full and timely responses to Written Parliamentary Questions and correspondence from Members of Parliament.
Asked by: Baroness Debbonaire (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, if she will update the Guide to Parliamentary Work for officials.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Alongside UK Parliament Week, the updated Guide to Parliamentary Work was published on Monday 14th November and is now available on Gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-parliamentary-work). The guide has been produced by the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, working closely with colleagues across government, and in the service of the House of Commons and House of Lords, and is designed for civil servants who work closely with Parliament and, in particular, Parliamentary teams across Whitehall.