Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what guidance his Department has issued to (a) Ministers and (b) staff on maintaining the confidentiality of official documents after they leave office.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
In addition to the requirements set out in the Ministerial Code, Ministers are reminded on leaving office of their ongoing duty of confidentiality and the Official Secrets Act.
Departments and agencies are obliged to remind those who leave the civil service that they remain subject to the requirement in Civil Service Code not to disclose official information without authority, which continues to apply after leaving their role, as well as the Official Secrets Act.
The Civil Service Management Code sets out more detail on the requirements on civil servants with regards to maintaining confidentiality, including key principles (section 4.1.3.a.) and standards (4.2.4), and the obligations on departments and agencies (4.2.1).
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the public bodies reform programme 2020 to 2025; and if he will make an estimate of the impact of that reform programme on costs to the public purse (i) so far and (ii) in each of the next three financial years.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
To date the Public Bodies Reform Programme 2020 to 2025 and wider Public Bodies Team has provided value for money for the taxpayer through:
conducting a prototype of corporate service benchmarking across 90 arm’s length bodies (ALBs), uncovering spend discrepancies and identifying scope for savings if ALB spending is brought in-line with the median spend;
the Public Bodies Review Programme, which commits departments to review 125 ALBs, covering 90% of ALB expenditure. Departments are expected to identify 5% operating expenditure savings in each full-scale review. So far, 60% of the 125 planned reviews have been initiated and £35 million in efficiency savings identified;
tightening approval processes for new ALBs, diverting almost 70% of proposed ALBs to less expensive delivery options;
publishing codes of practice for ALBs to improve financial oversight and risk management between department and ALBs; and
introducing quarterly non-executive (NED) board member inductions.
The Public Bodies Reform Programme runs until 31 March 2025. The Government will take a decision about the priorities for future public bodies reform in due course.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what (a) buildings, (b) other properties and (c) land leased by the Government have leases that are due to expire in each of the next ten years; how much the Government pays for each site each year; and what functions are performed on each site.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government Property Strategy, published August 2022, commits to a smaller, better, greener estate, disposing of surplus, under-utilised and poor quality property to enable efficiency savings and bring in capital receipts. The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-property-strategy-2022-2030
Full information on the spend for each site and the functions performed as well as property and land leases across the Government is held by individual departments and is not centrally held. The answer would therefore incur a disproportionate cost to the Cabinet Office. Additionally, disclosing information on rent and leases is often deemed commercially sensitive and may undermine businesses' trust in us as a commercial partner.
Information on the total land value of Government owned land, buildings and other property is published on gov.uk as part of the State of the Estate 2021-2022 (SofTE) report, Section 1.1, found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6436b48e877741000c68d867/State-of-The-Estate-21-22-Accessible.pdf
From the SofTE report, Section 1.1, the Central government estate was valued at £188.2bn. The total value of (a) land was £4.7bn with (b) buildings and (c) other property being a combined £183.5bn between 2020-21.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an estimate of the total value of (a) land, (b) buildings and (c) other property owned by the Government.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government Property Strategy, published August 2022, commits to a smaller, better, greener estate, disposing of surplus, under-utilised and poor quality property to enable efficiency savings and bring in capital receipts. The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-property-strategy-2022-2030
Full information on the spend for each site and the functions performed as well as property and land leases across the Government is held by individual departments and is not centrally held. The answer would therefore incur a disproportionate cost to the Cabinet Office. Additionally, disclosing information on rent and leases is often deemed commercially sensitive and may undermine businesses' trust in us as a commercial partner.
Information on the total land value of Government owned land, buildings and other property is published on gov.uk as part of the State of the Estate 2021-2022 (SofTE) report, Section 1.1, found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6436b48e877741000c68d867/State-of-The-Estate-21-22-Accessible.pdf
From the SofTE report, Section 1.1, the Central government estate was valued at £188.2bn. The total value of (a) land was £4.7bn with (b) buildings and (c) other property being a combined £183.5bn between 2020-21.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what (a) buildings, (b) land and (c) other property held by the Government are no longer required for operational purposes; and whether his Department is taking steps to (i) dispose and (ii) repurpose each site.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The requested information is not centrally held by the Cabinet Office and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the Department. Estates operations, performance and finances are for the operating department to manage themselves.
The Government Property Strategy, published August 2022, commits to a smaller, better, greener estate, disposing of surplus, under-utilised and poor quality property to enable efficiency savings and bring in capital receipts. The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-property-strategy-2022-2030
Managing Public Money sets out protocols for the disposal and transfer of surplus property and land assets at Annex A4.15, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money.
Departments can upload data on properties or land that are no longer required for operational purposes on the Government Property Finder (https://www.gov.uk/find-government-property) and / or Register of Surplus Land (https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/28c593bf-85fa-4676-a47b-45189d396ed9/land-register-of-surplus-land).
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of maintaining under-utilised (a) buildings, (b) other property and (c) land held by Government departments in the last 12 months.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The requested information is not centrally held by the Cabinet Office and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the Department. Estates operations, performance and finances are for the operating department to manage themselves.
The Government Property Strategy, published August 2022, commits to a smaller, better, greener estate, disposing of surplus, under-utilised and poor quality property to enable efficiency savings and bring in capital receipts. The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-property-strategy-2022-2030
Managing Public Money sets out protocols for the disposal and transfer of surplus property and land assets at Annex A4.15, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money.
Departments can upload data on properties or land that are no longer required for operational purposes on the Government Property Finder (https://www.gov.uk/find-government-property) and / or Register of Surplus Land (https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/28c593bf-85fa-4676-a47b-45189d396ed9/land-register-of-surplus-land).
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants were employed in each (a) Government department and (b) other public sector bodies by (i) head count and (ii) full time equivalent in each year since 1997.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Civil Service employment on both a headcount and full-time equivalent basis by government departments and their executive agencies and Crown NDPBs has been published on a quarterly basis since 2005 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of Public Sector Employment Statistics. The ONS statistics are our preferred headline measure for overall Civil Service and departmental employment. Departmental information back to 2005 can be accessed from the following ONS releases:
2011 to 2023
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
Information on Civil Service employment, on both a headcount and full-time equivalent basis by government department and their executive agencies and Crown NDPBs, is also available and published annually by Cabinet Office as part of Civil Service Statistics and can be accessed from the webpages below:
2006 to 2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the cost was of civil service salaries in each year since 1997.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office does not hold actual outturn salary cost information for all Civil Service departments and organisations since 1997.
However, estimated nominal Civil Service salary costs have previously been calculated for the years 2010 to 2023. These are provided in Table 1 below.
Table 1
Year | Estimated nominal salary cost (£ billions) |
2010 | 12.7 |
2011 | 12.4 |
2012 | 11.6 |
2013 | 11.4 |
2014 | 11.6 |
2015 | 11.7 |
2016 | 11.6 |
2017 | 11.8 |
2018 | 12.4 |
2019 | 13.2 |
2020 | 14.0 |
2021 | 15.4 |
2022 | 16.6 |
2023 | 17.8 |
Source: Civil Service Statistics
Figures are based on Civil Service salaries as at 31st March in each year, and have been adjusted for missing values. They have not been adjusted for inflation (i.e. they are nominal values).
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the (a) total and (b) full-time equivalent head count was of the civil service in each year since 1997.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Civil service employment on both a headcount and full-time equivalent basis since 1997 is shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Civil Service employment on both a headcount and full-time equivalent basis since 1997 (thousands)
Reference point | Headcount | Full-time Equivalent (FTE) |
Mar-97 | 496 [1] | 495 |
Mar-98 | 484 [1] | 481 |
Mar-99 | 497 | 475 |
Mar-00 | 509 | 485 |
Mar-01 | 519 | 494 |
Mar-02 | 529 | 502 |
Mar-03 | 552 | 521 |
Mar-04 | 565 | 534 |
Mar-05 | 558 | 525 |
Mar-06 | 555 | 521 |
Mar-07 | 538 | 504 |
Mar-08 | 518 | 485 |
Mar-09 | 519 | 485 |
Mar-10 | 522 | 487 |
Mar-11 | 508 | 465 |
Mar-12 | 459 | 424 |
Mar-13 | 443 | 409 |
Mar-14 | 435 | 401 |
Mar-15 | 434 | 400 |
Mar-16 | 419 | 387 |
Mar-17 | 419 | 389 |
Mar-18 | 430 | 399 |
Mar-19 | 446 | 414 |
Mar-20 | 456 | 423 |
Mar-21 | 505 | 468 |
Mar-22 | 512 | 480 |
Mar-23 | 521 | 489 |
Sep-23 | 529 | 496 |
Sources:
1997-1998 Civil Service Statistics, Cabinet Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics
1999-2023 Public Sector Employment Statistics, ONS
Notes:
1. All data refer to total Civil Service employment for both permanent and temporary/casual employees, except for 1997 and 1998 headcount numbers. The figures for 1997 and 1998 do not include temporary/casual employees in the headcount totals as they are not available.
2. ONS Public Sector Employment Statistics is the preferred headline measure for Civil Service employment since 1999. Civil Service Statistics, published annually by the Cabinet Office, provides more detailed demographic information for the Civil Service workforce, and prior to 1999, also provides the preferred headline measure for Civil Service employment.
Asked by: Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of the Recruiting for vacancies requiring National Security Vetting clearance: code of practice; whether he has made a recent estimate of the (a) number and (b) proportion of vacancies advertised that do not comply with the code of practice; and what recourse applicants have if they are unable to apply for an advertised vacancy which does not comply with the code of practice.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The code of practice is in place to ensure that those who do not already hold National Security Vetting are not at a disadvantage when applying for a role in the Civil Service.
Whilst the Cabinet Office does not currently collect data on the number or proportion of vacancies advertised that do not comply with the code of practice, the government aims to reduce non-compliance.
Candidates unable to apply for an advertised vacancy which does not comply with the National Security Vetting Code of Practice may raise a complaint with the recruiting department in the first instance. If they remain dissatisfied and the vacancy was advertised publicly, they may bring their complaint to the Civil Service Commission on the basis they feel the selection for appointment has not met the requirements of the Civil Service Recruitment Principles. In open competitions anyone who wishes must be allowed to apply.