Asked by: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2024 to Question 16605 on Ministry of Defence: Senior Civil Servants, how many senior responsible owner positions are filled with temporary cover.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Senior Responsible Owner resourcing position is monitored at local levels with formal reporting at the end of each quarter. At 31 March 2024, all of our 50 Government Major Projects Portfolio programmes had a Senior Responsible Owner in place who was accountable for decisions and making progress against the delivery plan.
In three cases these positions were filled temporarily while recruitment action takes place.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 26 February 2024 to Question 15551 on Civil Servants: Veterans, how many minority ethnic veterans were employed through the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative in the last 12 months.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
This Government is committed to making sure that all veterans have equal opportunities and can access valuable, sustainable careers, including in the Civil Service, after they leave the Armed Forces.
There are a range of Civil Service recruitment initiatives for veterans, offering a fulfilling career in public service which makes the most of the skills and capability they have to offer. Over 1,000 veterans to date have secured a job in the Civil Service through the ‘Great Place to Work for Veterans’ initiative and a further 200 veterans have been recruited through the 'Going Forward Into Employment' initiative.
Whilst a breakdown of demographics of veterans who apply to Civil Service roles is not currently available, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is committed to enhancing the collection, use and analysis of data across the public, private and charitable sectors to build our evidence base to effectively identify and address the needs of veterans
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 1 March 2024 to Question 15550 on Civil Servants: Veterans, whether his office captures regional data on veterans who access employment through the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
This Government is committed to making sure that all veterans have equal opportunities and can access valuable, sustainable careers, including in the Civil Service, after they leave the Armed Forces.
There are a range of Civil Service recruitment initiatives for veterans, offering a fulfilling career in public service which makes the most of the skills and capability they have to offer. Over 1,000 veterans to date have secured a job in the Civil Service through the ‘Great Place to Work for Veterans’ initiative and a further 200 veterans have been recruited through the 'Going Forward Into Employment' initiative.
Whilst a breakdown of demographics of veterans who apply to Civil Service roles is not currently available, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is committed to enhancing the collection, use and analysis of data across the public, private and charitable sectors to build our evidence base to effectively identify and address the needs of veterans
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 1 March 2024 to Question 15551 on Civil Servants: Veterans, whether his office captures demographic data on veterans who access employment through the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
This Government is committed to making sure that all veterans have equal opportunities and can access valuable, sustainable careers, including in the Civil Service, after they leave the Armed Forces.
There are a range of Civil Service recruitment initiatives for veterans, offering a fulfilling career in public service which makes the most of the skills and capability they have to offer. Over 1,000 veterans to date have secured a job in the Civil Service through the ‘Great Place to Work for Veterans’ initiative and a further 200 veterans have been recruited through the 'Going Forward Into Employment' initiative.
Whilst a breakdown of demographics of veterans who apply to Civil Service roles is not currently available, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is committed to enhancing the collection, use and analysis of data across the public, private and charitable sectors to build our evidence base to effectively identify and address the needs of veterans
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of civil service recruitment campaigns failed to fill the post advertised in each financial year from 2019/20.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government Recruitment Service collaborates with departments, functions and professions to develop and deliver high quality, customer-focused recruitment that identifies and attracts the best people for roles whilst offering a wide range of services. It offers core low-cost solutions to meet routine recruitment needs and handles more complex or specialist campaigns by tailoring its approach to attract and recruit the highest quality candidates.
The following table presents civil service recruitment campaigns with successful and unsuccessful vacancy outcomes for campaigns managed by the Government Recruitment Service.
Year | Vacancy Outcome Successful | Vacancy Outcome Unsuccessful | Total number of vacancies |
2020 | 10080 | 5146 | 15226 |
2021 | 15871 | 9511 | 25382 |
2022 | 16047 | 9851 | 25898 |
2023 | 13909 | 9576 | 23485 |
Total | 55907 | 34084 | 89991 |
The Government Recruitment Service does not hold any data on why candidates are not successful. However, there could be a range of reasons for non-appointment. All candidates will have been sifted or interviewed out of the recruiting process.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many civil servants in her Department have a criminal conviction.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
DBT do not centrally hold data on employees with criminal convictions. This information will be captured and considered at application stage by the Government Recruitment Service through the BPSS checks. In line with wider Civil Service guidance, the Department does encourage applications from those with prior convictions via our recruitment campaigns on Civil Service Jobs. The department also supports the Going Forwards into Employment, Prison Leaver scheme which is an exception to the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles.
Asked by: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether there are controls on external recruitment of (a) new and (b) replacement (i) civil servants and (ii) other public sector administrators.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
There are specific statutory provisions in place that control all appointments to new and replacement Civil Service roles arising from external recruitment.
The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 requires that selection to the Civil Service must be on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition. The Civil Service Commission has a statutory duty to ensure that the merit requirement is upheld and is not being undermined. The Commission’s interpretation of this statutory requirement is outlined to Civil Service departments in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles 2018.
The Aliens’ Employment Act 1955 outlines the eligibility for employment in the Civil Service on the grounds of nationality. The Cabinet Office has published the Civil Service Nationality Rules on Gov.uk to support departments in the interpretation of this statutory requirement.
The Civil Service Management Code delegates authority to individual departments to determine their recruitment approach within the scope of these statutory requirements. Additional policy provisions can be applied such as the Civil Service Recruitment Framework. Since January 2016, the Framework has been committed to opening up all Senior Civil Service (SCS) vacancies by advertising them externally to the public by default. In May 2022, this commitment was strengthened, requiring departments to obtain approval from the responsible minister when seeking to limit an SCS vacancy to existing civil servants only.
For other public administrators outside of the Civil Service, it would be down to their respective organisations to comment on whether they have such controls in place.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of reinstating former civil servants on public finances.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Individual departments are responsible for the recruitment of their staff and are able to set their own policies accordingly, subject to the framework of instructions set out in the Civil Service Management Code and the Civil Service Recruitment Principles. This includes the reinstatement of former civil servants under exception five of the Recruitment Principles.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) male and (b) female former civil servants have applied for reinstatement after taking time off for caring responsibilities in the last five years.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The information requested is not held by the Government Recruitment Service (GRS). Reinstatements are managed by each individual Department who will hold their own data rather than centrally by GRS.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the (a) average and (b) longest time between application and a start date for recruiting a civil servant was in the last three years; and whether he is taking steps to reduce those times.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Civil Service recruitment must follow the rules set out in legislation within the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaGA) 2010 which outlines the requirements to ensure that Civil Servants are recruited on merit, via fair and open competition. The Civil Service must also ensure that detailed pre-employment checks (such as appropriate levels of security clearance) are carried out before employment can begin.
Information on the average time to hire across departments can be found in the recent National Audit Office report published on ‘Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management', found here: https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/civil-service-workforce/
As set out in the Civil Service People Plan published on 10 January 2024, we are committed to ensuring we attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds, to create a brilliant Civil Service now, and for the future.
We must modernise the ways we recruit, speed up and simplify the process and improve the candidate experience without compromising on quality or fairness. We must also continue to expand the use of secondments and other direct entry routes (including the Fast Stream and apprenticeships), ensuring they are properly embedded in the skills and resourcing strategies of all departments and professions.
The Cabinet Office is introducing a set of consistent and comparable Civil Service recruitment measures and benchmarks which will be implemented across the Whitehall 17 departments. This will give greater transparency of metrics across the recruitment cycle.