Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the objective of the Government Consulting Hub to grow the Civil Service’s internal capability, how many officials have participated in civil service learning programmes for the purposes of equipping them with the skills to deliver work commonly undertaken by consultants.

The Government Consultancy Hub (GCH) ran from May 2021 to 31 January 2023. One of the unit’s goals was to grow the Civil Service’s internal capability and confidence to frame and/or address its strategic questions, to be a strong customer of consultancy, and to redeploy knowledge and experience.

Since May 2021 until September there have been a total of:

- 36 cohorts, with 576 places, of the GCH sponsored Core Consulting Skills programme

- 3 cohorts, with 48 places, of the contextualised IPA Core Consulting Skills programme.

- 15 people completed a Senior Leaders Consulting Skills programme.

In addition, 18 people in DWP completed Leadership Capability team development – core capability developments on how to consult and identify needs.