Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of (a) the cost of facility time and (b) the number of trade union officials who used facility time at Network Rail in 2020-21.

The Government is committed to ensuring that facility time usage within the public sector remains accountable and represents value for money to the taxpayer.

With the exception of the education sector, compliance rates for all other sectors, using the Government’s reporting portal, for the 2020/21 reporting year exceeded 60% of expected returns. This was an overall improvement compared to the 2019/20 reporting year where both education and the NHS sectors were below a 60% compliance rate.

The Government is taking action this year to ensure that overall compliance rates continue to rise. Greater transparency will enhance accountability over the spending of taxpayers’ money and practices within the public sector.

The full sector breakdown for the compliance rates over the last two years is below:

Network Rail is not currently in scope for the relevant facility time reporting regulations; we are open to representations on this matter.