Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to increase the number of apprenticeship starts in her Department.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We remain committed to supporting the use of apprenticeships across all government departments to break down barriers to opportunity.
A new cross-Government Level 3 apprenticeship programme in Business Administration, the ‘Civil Service Career Launch Apprenticeship’ (CLA), will see new apprentices kickstart their careers, across various departments, starting from January 2026. The Department for Work and Pensions has been supporting Cabinet Office with the development of this new scheme, sharing learning from our own school leaver Social Mobility Apprenticeship pilot, which has run successfully for the last two years, with our first cohort of school leavers all securing permanent employment within the Department.
In addition, in the Department for Work and Pensions we are developing an internal apprenticeship strategy, which will utilise the flexibility provided by the new Growth and Skills Levy to develop skills and support the future needs of the Department. Expansion of opportunities to recruit new apprentices are being explored, including continued use of our Social Mobility Apprenticeship schemes and direct recruitment of apprentices into entry level roles. We have recently run a campaign for 50 new Level 3 apprentices in Counter Fraud and Compliance, with a further 40 roles due to go live next month.
We are committed to Getting Britain Working, driving growth through employment. Our plan includes a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work. The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working closely with the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England who have commenced phased delivery of the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers announced in the Get Britain Working white paper from May 2025. The Department is committed to offering high quality apprenticeships for all and working with professions to identify opportunities to fulfil business needs.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Civil Service Commission's publication entitled How Departments are doing on fair and open recruitment: what the Commission’s audits found, published in April 2025, in which departments audits found errors on the management of appointments by exception.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The Civil Service Commission is operationally independent of the Government. The Commission reports on its audit activity each year in its Annual Report but does not publish individual departmental audits. The Commission additionally published a review into appointments by exception in November 2024.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to increase the (a) skills and (b) capacity of planning authorities in rural areas.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Supporting local planning authorities to attract, retain and develop skilled planners is crucial to ensuring they provide a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities and that new developments are well designed and facilitate local growth.
The government appreciates that planning departments across the country, including in rural areas, are experiencing challenges with recruitment, retention, and skills gaps and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.
At the Budget, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026.
Our manifesto committed us to appointing 300 new planning officers into LPAs. We are on track to meet that commitment through two routes, namely graduate recruitment through the Pathways to Planning scheme run by the Local Government Association and mid-career recruitment through Public Practice.
On 27 February, the government announced funding to support salaries and complement graduate bursaries. Further information can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 27 February 2025 (HCWS480).
On 25 February, the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 were agreed. These regulations increase planning fees for householder and other applications, with a view to providing much-needed additional resources for hard-pressed LPAs.
More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that LPAs have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.
Lastly, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which was introduced on 11 March includes provisions that will allow LPAs to set planning fees or charges at a level that reflects the individual costs to the LPA to carry out the function for which it is imposed and to ensure that the income from planning fees or charges is applied towards the delivery of the planning function.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to increase oversight of recruitment practices in domiciliary care agencies.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Most domiciliary care agencies are private sector providers and therefore their recruitment practises are independent of central Government.
The Department works closely with regulators, local authorities, other Government departments, and enforcement bodies to share concerns and intelligence about, and where appropriate take action against, illegal or unethical recruitment practices in adult social care.
Regulation 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 states that providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) must deploy “sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff to enable them to meet the needs of the people using the service at all times”. Additionally, Regulation 19 compels providers regulated by the CQC to make sure that they only employ “fit and proper” staff who are able to provide care and treatment appropriate to their role. To meet this regulation, providers must operate robust recruitment procedures, including undertaking any relevant checks.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Civil Service Commission's publication entitled How Departments are doing on fair and open recruitment: what the Commission’s audits found, published in April 2025, if he will place in the Library a copy of the 39 departmental audits.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Civil Service Commission is operationally independent of the Government. The Commission reports on its audit activity each year in its Annual Report but does not publish individual departmental audits.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that social care providers recruiting (a) internationally and (b) within the UK comply with British (i) legal obligations and (ii) ethical standards towards their staff.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care works closely with regulators, local authorities, other departments, and enforcement bodies to share concerns and intelligence about illegal or unethical practices in adult social care. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority investigates reports of worker exploitation and illegal activity, such as human trafficking, modern slavery, forced labour, and other labour market offences.
The Government is delivering legislation to improve employment rights, and the Fair Work Agency in the Employment Rights Bill will bring together existing state enforcement functions which, over time, will take on enforcement of a wider range of employment rights.
We are also committed to ensuring ethical and sustainable approaches to international recruitment. All providers should be meeting the clear ethical standards laid out in the Code of Practice for International Recruitment. The Code of Practice sets stringent ethical standards for recruiters and employers to follow to ensure that people coming from overseas are treated fairly and provided with the appropriate support. Any accusations of illegal employment practices will be fully investigated by the relevant authorities. Any business found guilty of serious employment law breaches will have action taken against them by the Home Office, up to and including having their visa sponsorship licences revoked. The Department of Health and Social Care is providing up to £12.5 million to 15 regional partnerships this financial year to support them to prevent and respond to unethical international recruitment practices in the sector. This includes support for international recruits to understand their employment rights to switch employers, to remain working in the care sector when they have been impacted by their sponsor’s license being revoked.
Asked by: Rachel Blake (Labour (Co-op) - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the First-Tier Tribunal.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This Government inherited a broken justice system with record and rising court backlogs. The Lord Chancellor recently announced that for 2025-26, the Ministry of Justice will provide a total budget of £2,538 million.
We have continued investment this year in the recruitment of up to 1,000 judges and tribunal members across all jurisdictions. This includes recruitment targeted at First-tier Tribunal chambers with the greatest business need.
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems, and the use of remote hearing technology.
As a result, the Lord Chancellor was able to announce on 5 March the sitting day allocations for the First-tier Tribunal for 2025/26, which will enable all chambers of the First-tier Tribunal to sit at, or near, their maximum capacity for the year.
We recognise that there remain significant challenges for the performance of the First-tier Tribunal. We are therefore continuing to monitor demand on the Tribunal and are working with the Judiciary, HMCTS and relevant Government Departments on the further actions needed to alleviate pressures on the Tribunal system, improve efficiency and reduce waiting times to ensure timely access to justice for all parties.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, which company is contracted to deliver recruitment advertising for the Royal Air Force.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
All media is bought through the cross Government buying contract with Manning Gottlieb (MG) Omni Media Group. All Government Departments are mandated to use this contract.
Asked by: Lord Leigh of Hurley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the salary level or grade of seniority of a (1) permanent civil servant, (2) direct ministerial appointment, (3) public appointment and (4) special adviser at which there is a policy of public transparency on the individual public servant’s remuneration.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
In the Civil Service, the Senior Civil Service (SCS) is subject to pay transparency arrangements. Departments publish the remuneration of their staff operating at Board level in their Annual Accounts (Remuneration and staff report). Departments also publish the salaries of their SCS staff in quarterly 'organograms' on GOV.UK.
The Cabinet Office also publishes an annual ‘high earner’ list of senior officials in departments, agencies and non-departmental public bodies. The previous administration did not update this list prior to the General Election. The Cabinet Office will publish a new 2025 list in due course.
Below SCS, delegated grades are not subject to pay transparency arrangements as pay and grading below the SCS has been delegated to departments since 1996, and the publication of permanent civil servants’ remuneration within these grades is at the discretion of each organisation.
Direct ministerial appointees and public appointees are officeholders rather than employees, and do not have a grade of seniority. Most such roles are unremunerated. Where an individual role does attract remuneration, this would usually be made public either in the recruitment advertisement, when made via an open competition, or in the announcement of the appointed individual.
The salaries of special advisers earning equivalent to senior civil servants (£75,000 and above) are given in bands of £5,000 and are published in the Special Adviser Annual Report.
Asked by: Tom Rutland (Labour - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that high quality candidates are (a) recruited to and (b) retained within the civil service.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are committed to ensuring we attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds to create a modern Civil Service that delivers high quality public services.
Recruiting and retaining talented individuals is vital to support the delivery of the Plan for Change. As my Rt Hon Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster outlined in his Reform speech, there is a clear need to overhaul the recruitment processes to reduce bureaucracy and support external candidates.
Actions to address this include embedding a test-and-learn approach to recruitment, reviewing the current selection processes to ensure they are appropriate and support all candidates and working with departments to utilise secondments to recruit and retain key skills.