Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the benefits of civil service secondments to local government.

Secondments between the UK Civil Service and local authorities support Levelling Up and Places for Growth ambitions to provide career pathways and opportunities for people in regions across the UK. The benefits include:

• For individual secondees: career development opportunities; valuable immersive experience to develop knowledge, skills and understanding; way of building networks across sectors.

• For the organisations: means of sharing expertise to contribute to policy development or implementation and improve delivery of public services; option for retaining talented staff in the longer term.

The Cabinet Office is working closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to understand departmental demand for these secondments and to explore options to develop an approach to working with local authorities to develop a pipeline of secondments opportunities with the Civil Service.