Cabinet Office

Please refer to the table below for spend by the New Media Unit on third party suppliers, from 1 November 2024 to 13 November 2025.

The New Media unit includes employees from grade AO to SCS1 and the headcount is 28 FTE.

The New Media Unit is not currently recruiting.

Guidance on management of records for official ministerial meetings is published on gov.uk, and available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-management-of-private-office-information-and-records/guidance-for-the-management-of-private-office-information-and-records-html.

The guidance in place in August 2019 is available in the National Archives: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/popapersguidance2009.pdf

Guidance on management of records for official ministerial meetings is published on gov.uk, and available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-management-of-private-office-information-and-records/guidance-for-the-management-of-private-office-information-and-records-html.

The guidance in place in August 2019 is available in the National Archives: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/popapersguidance2009.pdf

As announced on 6th April 2025, the Government is conducting a full-scale review of arm's-length bodies in order to reduce the duplication of work by public bodies, improve efficiency, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve transparency. This review is ongoing, but some changes have already been announced such as the closure of NHS England to reduce bureaucracy, make savings and empower NHS staff to deliver better care for patients.

Please see the table below for 2024, 2025 and latest available figures on Civil Service employment sourced from ONS Public Sector Employment Statistics.

*latest available

Each department will take a decision on its future size and shape as per the financial settlements that were agreed with HM Treasury in the Spending Review. These plans will take a whole workforce approach based on the cost of civil servants, Contingent Labour, Consultancy and Managed Services, and will be finalised through the business planning process that is currently underway.

Reminders on terminology have been issued to relevant teams and departments.

Responsibility for, and management of, departmental diversity networks, is delegated to individual departments as the employer. This includes the decision to adopt or align with the Staff Network Policy. The Cabinet Office has not set a timetable for departments. Departmental policies are not monitored or held centrally by the Cabinet Office.

The Scheme Manager and the Scheme Administrator work in close partnership to ensure that all death in service cases are treated as a matter of the highest priority.

To improve the provision of benefits to bereaved families, the new Civil Service Pensions Scheme Contract has been strategically designed with enhanced performance metrics and more rigorous key performance measures. These improved indicators allow the Scheme Manager to exert greater leverage over the Administrator, ensuring that service delivery meets strict standards and that any delays are met with robust financial penalties.

Furthermore, the Cabinet Office has implemented a standardised contract management policy to provide consistent, high-level oversight. This ensures that the administration of death in service benefits is not only closely monitored but held to a level of accountability that directly supports a more efficient and responsive process for claimants.

Promotion in the Civil Service is through fair and open competition and is overseen by the Civil Service Commission.

The Cabinet Office is responsible for centrally managed leadership development programmes for staff at G7 to DD (the Accelerated Development Schemes). Recruitment to these programmes is guided by the same principles. Participation in the Accelerated Development Schemes is not restricted to ethnicity or other protected characteristics.

The Cabinet Office does not hold any central records on which departments have given agreement to allow paid time to be used for trade union activities.

I refer to my answer for 93384. Payments are published in departmental Annual Reports and Accounts for the financial years in which they were made. These are available on GOV.UK

Civil servants who act as coaches within the Internal Coaching Service are permitted to provide coaching sessions during their contracted working hours. Participation in the coaching service often forms an additional work objective, and coaches are responsible for discussing their participation with their line managers.

The Civil Service Recruitment Framework exists to ensure vacancies are consistently accessible to the widest possible pool of talent. There are no plans to publish this internal-facing framework to the public domain, as it constitutes HR-to-HR guidance designed for departments to integrate into their respective policies and processes.

Promotion on a permanent basis can only take place after fair and open competition. Senior Civil Service vacancies are advertised externally by default and exceptions must be approved by a Minister or Permanent Secretary equivalent in non-Ministerial departments. Civil Service Commissioners chair all competitions for SCS3 and SCS4 posts to ensure appointments are made on merit.

In the Civil Service a level move is when a civil servant moves from one role to another at the same grade as their current one. This can be from one government department to another or within the same department.

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. However, the government has a duty to recover overpaid public money to ensure the scheme remains fair and sustainable for all taxpayers.

The Civil Service Pension Scheme pays out 732,000 pensions per month, and processes in excess of 1,000,000 member transactions each month. There have been, on average, 40 cases a year where human or administrative error led to a member being overpaid since 2014. While many overpayments in the scheme occur due to the late notification of a member's death, these specific cases do not relate to processing mistakes. Under current contracts, if the scheme cannot recover these funds from the member, it seeks recovery from the pension administrator.

We recognise that being asked to repay funds can be stressful. To manage the impact on retired civil servants, the scheme administrator works individually with those affected to create manageable recovery plans. These plans focus on the member's specific ability to pay, often spreading repayments over a long period to ensure that no undue financial hardship is caused.

Official residences are allocated to Ministers at the Prime Minister's discretion, to support them in their official duties. This has been the case under decades of successive governments, and it is not usual practice to publish specific dates of their occupation.

Before joining the government, Mr Allan sought and received advice on his interests. He has followed every element of the advice received.

As a result of that advice, he resigned his directorship with Strand and ceased any involvement in its governance or operations. Mr Allan has recused himself from engagement with Strand Partners in relation to the firm’s business, and from involvement in any procurement relating to Strand Partners during his period of employment.

The next report into the operation of the UK Honours System is expected in due course.

There are no plans to publish this correspondence.

Since July 2024, the Cabinet Office has given advice on the announcement of one Direct Ministerial Appointment being exempt from publication, who was providing short-term advice on security and defence policy.

The House of Lords works best when there is a diversity of perspectives represented, including from all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister published a statement in June 2025, setting out the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the appointments system, in which he emphasised that party leaders should consider national and regional representation when making nominations, to ensure the second chamber better reflects the country it serves.

As a first step in reform of the House of Lords, the Government introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill which removes the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The Government’s priority is to get this Bill on the statute book as soon as possible.

The Government is committed to minimising administrative burdens and frictions experienced by businesses trading internationally. While delivery of the single trade window (STW) was paused at the end of 2024, it remains the Government’s intention to deliver an STW, and we will use the pause to further engage with key border stakeholders to better understand their needs.

There are no set criteria for removal from the Roll of the Peerage.

The Government recognises the importance of the effective and timely handling of written parliamentary questions (PQs).

The House of Commons Procedure Committee monitors departmental PQ performance and publishes a report of the government’s consolidated PQ data following the end of each session.

The eligibility criteria for infected people for the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme, established by the Government, are different from the eligibility criteria for the Infected Blood Support Schemes (IBSS). Only those who are receiving support scheme payments from the IBSS will be eligible to continue receiving these payments as part of their wider compensation paid by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), if they choose to do so.

The delay of the transfer will therefore not impact the compensation available to infected people who were never registered with IBSS. IBCA opened its service to the first claims from infected people who were not registered with IBSS in November.

The Corporate governance in central government departments: code of good practice (2017) does not require publication of board and committee Terms of Reference.

No.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 defines contracts and employee rights for pay, leave, dismissal and other employment rights.

The model Permanent Secretary contract mentioned in the answer of 9 December 2025, states the terms and conditions and is used for Permanent Secretary level appointments including the Cabinet Secretary.

A list of the Public Bodies which are required to submit facility time data can be found in Schedule 1 of The Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017.

The public-sector trade union facility time data for the year 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 has been published on .gov.uk.

Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:

Public sector employment, UK: September 2025

Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web address:

Cabinet Office annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK

Tom Kibasi was hired on secondment for a period of 2 months.

I refer the Hon Member to the answer of 25 November 2025, Official Report, PQ 91376.

It is for the answering Minister to determine how to reply to a written parliamentary question.

There have been no such instances of failure.

Please see below for the requested breakdown:

Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.

The Cabinet Office Precedent Book was last updated in 1992 and has been largely superseded by other documents, including the Cabinet Manual.

The Cabinet Office does not maintain a book of precedents.

The Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 did not include information on the political activity of public appointees due to the transition to the public appointments digital service in 2023. This data is now being collected and will be considered for inclusion in future reports.

The government is committed to ensuring that public appointments are more representative of our nations and regions, including socio-economic background.

As a first step in reform of the House of Lords, the Government has introduced legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

The Government is committed to delivering further reform. The House of Lords has now agreed to establish a dedicated select committee to look at how best to implement the manifesto commitments on a retirement age and participation requirement.

The invoice submission was delayed by the contractor. Payment could not be made until the invoice was received.

The Cabinet Office does not hold any digital records relating to the meeting held on 28 August 2019 between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Mr Peter Thiel.

This was not a decision taken by ministers. The Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 did not include information on the political activity of public appointees due to the transition to the public appointments digital service in 2023.

The Commissioner for Public Appointments Annual Report 2024-25 was published on 17 December. For appointments made during the reporting period, the report provides the percentage of appointees who declared political activity. It does not provide a breakdown of political activity by party for the reason stated above.