Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to section 1.3 of the report entitled Strengthening Ethics and Integrity in Central Government, published in July 2023, whether Ministers appointed in the reshuffle on 13 November 2023 were asked to sign a deed to abide by Advisory Committee on Business Appointment decisions.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government expects all former Ministers to abide by their obligations with regard to the Business Appointment Rules, as set out in the Ministerial Code. The work to develop a ministerial deed is ongoing and, as such, it has not yet been introduced.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, on what dates his Department plans to publish a response to (a) Sir Nigel Boardman's Review into the Development and Use of Supply Chain Finance in Government, published in August 2021 and (b) the Committee on Standards in Public Life's report entitled Upholding Standards in Public Life, published in November 2021.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government's response to Sir Nigel Boardman's Review into the Development and Use of Supply Chain Finance in Government; the Committee on Standards in Public Life's report 'Upholding Standards in Public Life', and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee's report 'Propriety of Governance in Light of Greensill' will be published before the summer recess.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to reply to the letters of 21 March and 24 April 2023 from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare about Chinese surveillance technology on behalf of his constituent Andy Clark.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
A response to the Honourable Member’s constituent, Andy Clark, has been issued and a copy will be deposited in the House of Commons Library.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government has taken to implement the recommendation of the Boardman review on prohibiting suppliers from referring to government contracts in marketing material without government consent.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
I refer the Hon Member to the Written Ministerial Statement Government Transparency and Accountability, put before the House by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 15 July 2022. The statement sets out action already taken in relation to reports by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and Nigel Boardman and that further work continues.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what steps the Government has taken to implement the recommendation in the Boardman review on restricting the use of employer salary advance schemes for civil servants.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
I refer the Hon Member to the Written Ministerial Statement Government Transparency and Accountability, put before the House by the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 15 July 2022. The statement sets out action already taken in relation to reports by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and Nigel Boardman and that further work continues.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what steps the Government has taken to implement the recommendation of Boardman review on strengthening the oversight of the honours process within government departments.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government will be responding to the Boardman review in due course.
Asked by: John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of spending on Government programmes will be covered by the work of the Evaluation Task Force this year; and what plans he has to increase this figure to assess the effectiveness of all or most of those programmes in future.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Evaluation Task Force (ETF) was set up to improve the way government programmes are evaluated to improve our assessment of whether programmes should be continued, expanded, modified or stopped. The ETF provides all government Departments with reactive evaluation advice and support on request, as well as a proactive scrutiny and challenge function, which is responsive to requests from Treasury and Cabinet Office ministerial priorities. Departments, however, are responsible for evaluating their own programmes.
HM Government spends about £1 trillion each year, including £400 billion on public services. Since the establishment of the ETF 18 months ago, the team has advised on how to best evaluate 169 programmes worth £81.7bn. This includes the ETF’s recently published top 10 priority areas where they will provide more significant evaluation support and challenge to ensure that evaluation is used to understand the effectiveness of the most important policies and programmes across government. In addition, through the £15m Evaluation Accelerator Fund, the ETF has awarded 16 programmes funding to support actionable evaluations in priority areas.
The ETF advises on programmes covering single-year and multi-year expenditure and therefore cannot accurately determine the proportion of spending on government programmes that will be covered by the ETF this year.
The ETF will be updating the government major projects conducted by the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit in 2019. The findings will be used to identify projects where the ETF can make a significant difference by providing evaluation support. The ambition is, by 2025, all new major programmes in government will have a robust evaluation in place, delivering value for money for the public, and ensuring the impact of taxpayer money is maximised.