Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many competitions for public appointments have been paused before completion since 9 July 2024; what are the reasons for pausing these processes; and when they will be resumed.

The public appointments digital system, run by the Cabinet Office, enables departments to effectively and consistently manage their public appointment campaigns. It shows the current stage of a campaign and the outcome when completed. However, the system does not record if a campaign has been paused, and where campaigns are paused, the Cabinet Office does not collect the reasons for this or data on when such campaigns might be resumed. That would be a matter for individual sponsor departments and their ministers as part of the normal day-to-day management of the recruitment campaigns they run.