Cabinet Office

The Government is committed to ensuring value for money for the taxpayer across all departmental spending. Departmental budgets are kept under regular review as a matter of standard practice.

This information is not centrally held by the Government Communication Service.

The Cabinet Office, in conjunction with the relevant employing departments, keeps the security and nationality requirements of all roles under continuous review. This ensures that the classification of these posts remains proportionate and appropriate, effectively balancing the necessity of robust national security protocols with our commitment to maintaining a wide, diverse, and highly skilled talent pool.

The Cabinet Office remains committed to flexible working and the business benefits that it offers. We expect that most of our staff will be able to work both from home and in the workplace as part of an informal, non-contractual hybrid working arrangement. This is agreed and arranged with staff members individually.

As of 31st August 2026 there are 128 staff members (121.6 FTE) in the Cabinet Office who are on home working contracts.

Cabinet Office staff may apply for permission to temporarily work remotely overseas in exceptional circumstances. Examples of this might include when accompanying a Civil Service or Armed Forces partner on an official posting.

The GPA does not monitor attendance of its staff at buildings. Gov Pass can obtain the data when looking at building occupancy at any point in time but this data is not broken down to the level of specific staff member identification.

The Cabinet Office will publish detailed guidance on the application of social value criteria in central government procurement in the autumn.

We will publish the Civil Service External Expenditure on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the financial year 2025/2026 in due course.

We will be publishing data on the Fast Summer Internship recruitment campaign in our 2026 Fast Stream Annual Report. This is the same approach as was taken in the previous administration.

The Code of Ethical provisions as set out in the Bill will allow public authorities flexibility to implement the Code to suit their organisation and sector. Given that most public bodies will already be covered by a form of code, it is anticipated that costs will not be substantial.

The scale of these costs can only be fully determined after Royal Assent. A further assessment of impact will, therefore, be undertaken at the appropriate stage.

Delivering on the government’s commitment to delivering good growth in every part of the United Kingdom, the Place Regeneration Taskforce will support community renewal by working directly with local leaders, including local councils, through continuous engagement to improve people’s everyday experience of where they live.

Following the government’s commitment to deliver good growth in every part of the United Kingdom, the Place Regeneration Taskforce will deliver community renewal by working with local government to improve everyday experience and serving communities with locally-driven solutions.

This Government is committed to fostering a resilient economy that supports British businesses and creates good jobs in communities across the country.

We must ensure that every pound that we spend in procurement goes as far as it can in benefiting the UK and this is why we published a new Social Value Model with a much sharper focus on good quality jobs, skills and opportunities. Supplementary guidance will follow later this autumn and the model will apply to relevant procurements commencing from 1 January 2027.

These reforms will be carefully developed to be consistent with the UK’s international agreements, ensuring non-discriminatory treatment for suppliers and goods from countries who are party to those agreements. This is a two-way street as it gives UK suppliers access to public procurement markets overseas.

We are unable to disclose detailed budget figures for the Manchester Digital Campus to safeguard both national security and commercially sensitive information.

The Public Procurement Review Service (PPRS) can review individual decisions not to award a contract to a particular supplier. To determine whether a specific concern is in scope, the supplier making the referral would submit the case to the PPRS via GOV.UK

All external Equality, Diversity and Inclusion expenditure for the financial year 2024/2025 that was reported to the Cabinet Office has been published. The same principle will be applied for 2025/2026. It is the responsibility of arm’s-length bodies that fall within the Civil Service to report their relevant expenditure to the Cabinet Office.

This information is not centrally held by the Government Communication Service.

The taskforce will look to address the long term issues facing families, many of which have too often fallen through the cracks. Based in the Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the taskforce will be fully integrated with No10 and across government to deliver the change the public rightly expect to see.

The Social Value Model (PPN 026) is designed to build local workforce capacity, and support UK economic growth. The approach requires suppliers to recognise when suppliers create genuine economic additionality and takes this into account in central government commercial decision-making. This aligns with our Modern Industrial Strategy to drive long-term investment, strengthen supply chain resilience, foster procurement innovation and create high-quality jobs across the country.

The Government is committed to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises across the country, including in Buckingham and Bletchley. The new measures provide a clearer, simplified approach that will make it easier for businesses of all sizes to bid for government contracts.

Streamlining the social value requirements in central government procurement will simplify the procurement process and make it easier for businesses of all sizes to bid for government contracts.

Simplifying the social value requirements in central government procurement will simplify the procurement process and make it easier for businesses of all sizes to bid for government contracts.

Simplifying the social value requirements in central government procurement will simplify the procurement process and make it easier for businesses of all sizes to bid for government contracts.

Yes, the Transforming Public Procurement programme was completed on 31 March 2026, closed on the Government's Major Projects Portfolio and handed over to BAU.

I can advise that National Security Vetting (NSV) undertaken by His Majesty’s Government, remains separate from concurrent industry background checks. Successful and assured NSV is underpinned by appropriately considered and robustly applied recruitment due diligence.

I can confirm that Accreditation Checks (AC), which is a level of National Secuity Vetting primarily used by the aviation industry, are being processed in a timely manner with no current delays.

The Cabinet Office acts as a service provider for NSV clearances only. For national security reasons I am unable to share processing times for security clearances as release would likely prejudice national security and undermine the robust protective measures used to safeguard His Majesty’s Government.

The central government spend under and number of contracts agreed under Lot 1 are as follows:

(a) The actual spend recorded in GCA records since go-live is £14,784,206.00.

Call-off contracts under RM6364 are typically established on a zero-commitment basis, meaning contracts may be in place without committed spend, and individual campaign spend is subject to Advertising, Marketing and Communications (AMC) spend control approval for planned spend of £100,000 or more within a financial year.

(b) The number of call-off contracts agreed with the Lot 1 supplier, WPP650 is 33.

The Cabinet Office will publish detailed guidance on the application of social value criteria in central government procurement in the autumn. This will include standard reporting metrics.

Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Mobility (EDI) is one of six research themes that form the Government Skills Priority Research Topics. These themes together form the strategic framework of long-term questions where external research and evidence can most effectively inform future public sector capability, curriculum design and delivery strategy.

The College of Experts Terms of Reference states that members are drawn from academic and practitioner expert communities, membership is voluntary and is not compensated. The College of Experts is not a decision-making or steering authority. Members provide insights to support the work of Government Skills.

Members are not expected to have specific skills in EDI or any other individual theme. Recruitment is currently based on members having a proven track record of research that aligns with one or more of the themes, and showing they can turn academic theory and evidence into government-ready advice.

The Government continually assesses barriers to AI adoption to ensure we unlock significant productivity gains and modernise public services. As identified by the State of Digital Government review, there are several notable barriers: a national skills shortage, outdated legacy computer systems, and a risk-averse administrative culture.

We are tackling the skills gap by launching the National School of Government and Public Services to upskill our existing workforce. To fix legacy infrastructure, our Shared Services Strategy is replacing 286 vulnerable, outdated computer systems with modern, cloud-based platforms. To combat risk-aversion, "Project RESET" is stripping back bureaucratic spending controls so departments can procure and test new digital tools faster and more effectively.

The Government is committed to building AI capability across the Civil Service to deliver better, more efficient public services. We are driving this through targeted training, skills development, and specialist recruitment.

• Training: Following the "One Big Thing 2025" campaign where a record 221,000 civil servants took part in foundational AI training, we are launching "One Big Thing 2026: AI in Action" this autumn to equip every civil servant with practical AI skills and boost productivity by driving adoption of AI across the Civil Service.

• Skills: The new National School of Government and Public Services, launching this year and scaling over three years, will provide a dedicated curriculum covering AI, data, and digital capability.

• Recruitment: To attract top technical talent, 36 organisations have adopted the Government Digital, Data and Cyber Pay Framework. This supports our commitment to double the tech workforce from 5% to 10% of the Civil Service by 2030, reinforced by an expanded Digital Fast Stream featuring new Data Scientist and Software Engineer pathways.

Releasing this information would compromise personal data. It would therefore not be appropriate to comment.

The Cabinet Office received over 800 responses to its public consultation on public procurement in 2025, including from SMEs, VCSEs, and trade unions, and in March 2026, published the Government’s response on gov.uk.

It would not be appropriate to comment on private correspondence that may or may not have been received.

I refer the Honorable Member to the answers to the following questions which cover spend on branded goods and merchandise by Cabinet Office Arms Length Bodies:

• Question 4161 of 4 June 2026 which covered spend by the Government Property Agency (Executive Agency), Infected Blood Compensation Authority (Non-Departmental Public Body) and other small expert Arms Length Bodies including the Senior Salaries Review Board, Civil Service Commission, Ethics and Integrity Commission, and House of Lords Appointments Commission;

• Question 18638 of September 2025 which covered the four branded-refreshed banners which were bought by the Government Commercial agency;

• Question 16034 of 16 July 2026 which covered spending by the UK Statistics Authority.

There are established processes in place for the declaration and management of interests held by ministers and senior civil servants, which ensure that steps are taken to avoid a conflict of interest or manage the perception of a conflict.

Information about the ministers’ interests process can be found in the Ministerial Code as well as the List of Ministers’ Interests, which is published quarterly.

The Cabinet Office does not centrally hold a reportable record of the nationality of all individual employees.

RM6364 Media and Creative Services is used for the procurement of social media content creators, and this forms part of the framework scope.

I refer to the answer in PQ 4183; The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapists (BACP) indicate that outcomes are improved when clients from ethnic minorities are able to access counsellors from similar backgrounds. While we do not provide additional counselling, an individual from an ethnic minority who is receiving counselling, can request a counsellor from a similar background.

A total of 22 influencers have been used across the listed campaigns.

Government Skills launched an open recruitment campaign for its College of Experts on the 31st July 2026.

Government Skills is collecting this information to monitor fair and open competition in line with Equality Act protected characteristics.This data (and any other demographic information asked at recruitment) is used solely to identify recruitment trends and assess the diversity of the applicant pool and College members. Providing this information is voluntary, anonymous, and selection panels do not have access to it when making recruitment decisions.

Evaluation results for the GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland Campaign have not yet been finalised for financial year 2025/26. We expect initial economic returns generated by the campaign in 2025/26 to have been assessed and validated before the end of the year.

The Prime Minister has established the new Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (OPMC), which includes No10, No10 North and Cabinet Office teams directly serving the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Oversight of the OPMC is by the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office Ministers.

The AI Taskforce is led by AI Minister Kanishka Narayan and is based in the OPMC. The Government People Group’s (GPG) responsibilities will be divided between the OPMC and the OneGov Delivery Agency. The Future Civil Service Group, within the OPMC, brings together reform and people policy functions formerly within GPG, whilst operational service functions formerly within GPG will be delivered by the OneGov Delivery Agency, including the Government Recruitment Service and the pensions response team. The Government Property Agency continues to be one of the executive agencies of the Cabinet Office, overseen by Cabinet Office Ministers.

I refer the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire to the answer of 7 July 2026 to Question 13821.

The Cabinet Office will publish detailed guidance on the application of social value criteria in central government procurement in the autumn. This will include standard reporting metrics.

The Manchester Digital Campus details were exempted from the NISTA report to protect national security.