Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department is taking steps to recruit employees from the private sector into the civil service.

I announced at a speech in June at Policy Exchange a series of measures to make the Civil Service more attractive to external candidates. This included when recruiting for senior roles in the Civil Service the default position is that all recruitment must operate externally by default. This means vacancies at this level must be advertised both to applicants internal and external to the Civil Service on openly available websites to allow for all those interested in the role, including in the private sector, to apply. I announced that roles will be advertised on a broader range of openly available job boards with simplified job advertisements.