Baroness Finn

The Special Adviser Code of Conduct sets out that Special Advisers are subject to the Business Appointment Rules for civil servants. Special advisers that currently submit applications to ACOBA will, following the transfer of functions, submit applications to the Civil Service Commission. All other Special Advisers will follow their usual process as set out in the Business Appointment Rules guidance.

The Ministerial Code is clear that the Business Appointment Rules apply to former ministers after they leave office.

Ministers will also be expected to sign waivers to confirm that they will repay their severance payment in the event they are found to have seriously breached the Business Appointment Rules.

Yes. This is laid out in correspondence between the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, available on GOV.UK here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/correspondence-between-the-minister-for-the- cabinet-office-and-the-chair-cspl-on-the-ethics-and-integrity-commission

Independent appointments to the Commission will be subject to the Public Appointments Order in Council. Cabinet Office Ministers will be responsible for the appointment of members to the Commission.

The Civil Service Management Code will be updated in due course to reflect the transfer of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments' functions to the Civil Service Commission.

The Rt. Hon. Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office and His Majesty’s Paymaster General, on behalf of the Prime Minister, exchanged letters with Baroness Stuart, the First Civil Service Commissioner, in July 2025 to confirm the Commission’s agreement to accept new functions under section 17 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. This correspondence can be found here: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/first-civil-service-commissioner-responds-to-the-minister-for-the-cabinet-office-on-proposed-changes-to-the-role-of-the-civil-service-commission/

The Cabinet Office does not hold a central record of information on this topic.

Between 8 July 2024 and 7 July 2025, the Investment Committee met 12 times. The current membership of the Cabinet Office Investment Committee is:

• Cabinet Office Chief Operating Officer (Chair);

• Cabinet Office Chief Finance Officer;

• Cabinet Office Commercial Director;

• Cabinet Office Chief People Officer;

• Cabinet Office Strategy Director; and

• Cabinet Office Chief Digital Information Officer.

Between 8 July 2024 and 7 July 2025, the People and Operations Committee met 10 times. The current membership of the People and Operations Committee is:

• Cabinet Office Chief Operating Officer (co-Chair)

• Government Chief Property Officer (co-Chair)

• Cabinet Office Chief People Officer;

• Cabinet Office Chief Digital Information Officer;

• Director, Modernisation and Reform;

• SCS Diversity and Inclusion Champion;

• SCS Race Champion;

• SCS Gender Champion;

• SCS Disability Champion;

• SCS Social Mobility Champion;

• Professional Head of Intelligence Analysis, Joint Intelligence Organisation;

• Director, Functional Strategy, Performance and Capability, Government People Group;

• Director, Defence and Nuclear, National Security Secretariat;

• Cabinet Office Strategy Director;

• Head of Cabinet Office and Civil Service Communications; and

• Representative from Cabinet Office Race Equality Network (associate member).

Between 8 July 2024 and 7 July 2025, the Resilience and Security committee met 4 times. The current membership of the Resilience and Security Committee is:

• Cabinet Office Chief Operating Officer (co-chair);

• Director General, Propriety and Constitution Group (co-chair);

• Government Chief Security Officer;

• Cabinet Office Chief Digital Information Officer;

• Cabinet Office Chief Financial Officer;

• Cabinet Office Chief Information Security Officer, Government Digital Service;

• Chief Operating Officer, Government Property Agency;

• Cabinet Office Commercial Director;

• Director, Intelligence and Security, National Security Secretariat;

• Professional Head of Intelligence Analysis, Joint Intelligence Organisation;

• Director, Propriety and Ethics, Propriety and Constitution Group;

• Deputy Director, Corporate Services at No 10 and Cabinet Office; and

• Chief Digital Information Officer, Crown Commercial Service.

The Governance Code on Public Appointments sets out the role of Advisory Assessment Panels and includes guidance on their composition. The only prerequisites for the composition of individual panels are that there should be a departmental representative and an independent member. It is for ministers to agree on the composition of all Advisory Assessment Panels, including deciding the appropriate mix of knowledge and experience amongst panel members, based upon the requirements of each individual campaign. There has been no change since under the previous administration.

The Main Honours Committee is made up of the chairpeople of all ten independent honours committees, as well as an official chairperson who is appointed by the Cabinet Secretary and ex officio members, as set out here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/honours-committees.

Honours committee quoracy is set by the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals (HD Committee). It states that the independent membership must be higher than the number of officials on the Committee. There is no maximum number of independent members.

For the Health and Social Care Committee, the quoracy stands at four independent members. There are currently six independent members. There is no live recruitment campaign.

The Civil Service Board has ceased operation. Its last meeting took place on 29 January 2025.

The Director General of the Cabinet Office's Propriety and Constitution Group (previously Director General of Propriety and Ethics), since taking up the role in March 2021, has served as a member of an Advisory Assessment Panel on seven (7) public appointment recruitment campaigns.

The Governance Code on Public Appointments has a rigorous and well established process for assessing and managing potential conflicts of interest in all regulated public appointments processes, which has been in effect across a number of administrations. The process covers potential personal and professional conflicts of interest for both independent panel members and the departmental or sponsor body representatives. As per the Governance Code on Public Appointments, ministers must agree the composition of all Advisory Assessment Panels.

We do not release location data of Ministers.

As has been the practice in previous administrations, the arrangements for performance-related pay for the Senior Civil Service (SCS) are published in annual SCS pay practitioner guidance. The 2025-26 guidance, including the controls on performance related pay, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-the-senior-civil-service-pay-award-202526

For grades below the SCS, departments have delegated authority to determine their own performance-related pay arrangements.

Meetings with external organisations and individuals are declared quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK. Published declarations include official meetings with trade unions, subject to any exemptions listed in the Guidance.

The National Security Adviser is not a member of any Cabinet committees. The full list of Cabinet committees and their membership is available on Gov.uk. Officials and advisers may attend committees with agreement of the Chair.

All special advisers are employees of their appointing minister's department in line with the terms of the Model Contract for Special Advisers.

Special advisers have the same legal rights as other employees regarding the possibility of undertaking industrial action.

I refer the Noble Lady to my answer of 20 January 2025, Official Report, PQ HL3881:

On 8th January 2025 Baroness Finn asked: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office on 27 November 2024 (HC14966), whether the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals advises the Prime Minister or the Sovereign directly; and whether the Prime Minister can veto decisions by the Committee.

To which Baroness Twycross responded: The Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals advises the Sovereign directly.

As noted in our answer to HC 14966, the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary is a member of the committee. This is the mechanism by which the Prime Minister is able to feed into decisions taken by the committee, and the view of the PPS carries equal weight to all other committee members.

The visit in question was initially designated as an official event. It was subsequently rescheduled and redesignated as a political event. No further support was provided by permanent civil servants after this point.

During the life of contract C2980 with KPMG there are no contractual guarantees relating to spend or service volumes and no exclusivity arrangements. Furthermore, there have been no written assurances, side letters or informal undertakings relating to the continuation of work, future procurements or eligibility for subsequent frameworks.

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) has started to make payments to claimants using the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) payment capabilities. This is to facilitate the high volume and speed at which IBCA and this government wants to make payments to compensation recipients. The Cabinet Office has to transfer funding to DWP, via a payment service request, so they can make the compensation payments on behalf of IBCA.

Alternatives to a short-term contract extension were considered, and the decision to pursue a short-term extension without an increase to the contract value was taken based on this providing best value for money and other considerations (for example system changes and interoperability) and constraints associated with a short-term bridging opportunity.

At the Spending Review the Cabinet Office secured funding from the Transformation Fund to begin the long-term transformation of the civil service model for learning and development.

As has been long standing practice under successive administrations, the Government does not intend to place copies of official-level correspondence to the Senior Salaries Review Body in the Library of the House. All Government Written Evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body has been published on gov.uk.

There are nine Permanent Secretaries paid above £200,000. Data on pay is published in departments' quarterly transparency reports.

The Senior Leadership Committee has no role in Permanent Secretary pay. The Permanent Secretary Remuneration Committee (PSRC) monitors remuneration of the Permanent Secretary group and reviews the recommendations of the Senior Salaries Review Body including the annual pay award. The Government People Group provides secretariat support.

As set out in HL8031, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury approves cases to pay on appointment over the £200,000 band maximum.

The Cabinet Secretary seeks approval from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to permit Permanent Secretary remuneration to exceed the published maximum on appointment. This follows the HMT guidance on senior pay.

The letter from the Director of Civil Service Talent sent to the Senior Salaries Review Body was official level correspondence and not formal written evidence.

As outlined in the Written Ministerial Statement on 22 May, recommendations made in relation to the Permanent Secretary group by the Senior Salaries Review Body will be considered by the Permanent Secretary Remuneration Committee. Final recommendations on Permanent Secretary remuneration will be presented to the Prime Minister in due course.

As set out in the 2021-22 Fraud Landscape Report, relevant departments reported conducting fraud and error measurement exercises covering higher risk spending both during and after the pandemic. These were undertaken in financial year 2021-22.

These fraud and error measurement exercises in six COVID-19 support schemes (those with the highest spend and assessed level of fraud risk) were reviewed by the Government Counter Fraud Centre of Expertise (now the Public Sector Fraud Authority, PSFA) against the Government Counter Fraud Function’s Fraud Loss Measurement Standard. Each of these six COVID-19 support schemes had expenditure totalling more than £100m each.

The PSFA concluded in 2022 that the fraud and error measurement exercises undertaken by these departments in respect of these six schemes did not meet the Government Counter Fraud Profession Fraud Loss Measurement Standard. The failure of the six measurements assessed by the PSFA does not mean the measurement exercises, and results, were without value.

The PSFA does not intend to publish a list of all schemes assessed, although a majority have already been published in the Annual Reports & Accounts of the respective departments.

The Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner, who was appointed in December 2024, is also working closely with government departments and local authorities to tackle fraud linked to pandemic support schemes and recover public money. As set out in the Spring Statement, the government has accepted the Commissioner's early recommendation to improve incentives for departments to recover funds.

As set out in the Public Sector Fraud Authority’s Treasury Minutes Progress Report to the Public Accounts Committee on the Sixty-ninth Report of Session 2022-23 (Tackling fraud and corruption against government), available here, we no longer define fraud resources levels in this way.

This is because it is not feasible to identify a ‘correct’ level of counter fraud and corruption investment. This level is dependent on multiple factors which are considered by individual departments and organisations. The optimum level varies, depending on each organisation's fraud risk appetite and the balance of the other risks they face.

Departments agree targets for their impact on fraud, and an overview is published in Cross Government Fraud Landscape report. We will publish an update on performance in tackling fraud in the next report which is due for publication in November 2025.

In October 2024, the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) opened the claim service to a small number of people. As of 6th May, a total of 677 people have been contacted to start their claim for compensation. Since they became law on 31 March this year, IBCA has been working under the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme Regulations 2025. Going forward, IBCA is aiming to contact an average of 100 people to begin their claims every week. The Government expects IBCA to begin payments to people who are affected, to whom the 2025 Regulations also apply, by the end of this year.

Regarding the Infected Blood Support Schemes (IBSS), all those invited to claim so far are registered with IBSS. People are required to go through an application process for compensation, as the Compensation Scheme is separate to IBSS, but those registered with IBSS are automatically eligible for compensation. Additionally, IBCA holds details for all those people who are registered on existing support schemes and can request other information, such as medical records and information about a person's condition and severity, from organisations who already have it. This should mean those claiming will be asked for the least amount of information possible needed to calculate the compensation they are due.

The Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service is not involved with the process for the approval of payments to suppliers. The purchase to pay process is managed between the Cabinet Office Finance team and the respective Contract Manager.

At the time of this work, the Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service was a member of the Cabinet Office Investment Committee which was responsible for the approval of whole life investment spend for projects and programmes over £1m. In addition to this, all professional services spend over £100k required the approval from the Investment Committee and the Minister for Cabinet Office.

There is no No10 Implementation unit.

Contracts for Permanent Secretaries and all other SCS are not published publicly so we will not be placing a copy in the Library of the House.

The Cabinet Office has announced plans to restructure and reorganise, to create a more strategic, specialist, and smaller centre of government.

Savings will be made from non-pay budgets and pay budgets, and we expect up to 1,200 staff will leave the department in the next two years. Our priority is to achieve the necessary reductions through voluntary means or attrition. So far, 540 employees have been approved to leave through the Voluntary Exit Scheme, which is expected to cost £27 million. Estimates of the total cost of staff exits are under development. All exit payments will comply with the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. This is a long term investment as part of this government's commitment to reshape the way the British state delivers for and serves working people

These staff exits are separate to c.900 people who have moved out of the department through machinery of government changes. This includes the transfer of the Government Digital Service to DSIT to create the digital centre of government.

The CO has announced plans to restructure and re-organise, to create a more strategic, specialist and smaller centre of government.

We are currently working with the HR Directorate and our trade unions on the implementation of our directive, and will seek to achieve the necessary reductions through voluntary means and attrition.

As set out in our Written Answers on 22 October 2024 (PQ 6096) and 31 March 2025 (PQ 41100), we have been considering whether the commitment to publish guidance on direct ministerial appointments made by the previous administration was sufficient and appropriate for meeting the Committees’ recommendations. We will provide a further update in due course.

The privacy statement for the One Big Thing 2023 online platform stated that all personal data collected via the online platform would be deleted within 12 months of the initiative ending. The definition of personal data included the grades of individuals who registered to the Platform. The reference on data storage on page 17 in the technical report was therefore an error, which we will seek to correct.

Figures in the Evaluating One Big Thing 2023 report were based on actual registrations to the online platform for One Big Thing 2023. Therefore figures did not include any civil servants who engaged with One Big Thing 2023 components without registering on the online platform.

Data collected via the One Big Thing 2023 online platform was deleted by 31 December 2024, in line with the platform’s privacy statement. Beyond 31 December 2024, we retained aggregated data on overall registrations and % registrations by department.

The analysis reported in the Evaluating One Big Thing 2023 report was completed before the data was deleted but publication was delayed due to various factors including the General Election.

As part of the contract extension, KPMG has not received any new contractual guarantees or assurances.

For the Learning Frameworks 2.0 competition, the procurement is being run as a fair and open competition.

Following the election, this Government has outlined its ambitions through the Plan for Change, which sets out an ambitious set of milestones - across the missions - for this Parliament.

As the House would expect, Government continually reviews its work to ensure that it is delivering the best outcomes for the people of the United Kingdom, and that its policies continue to represent the best value for the taxpayer.

Public reviews will be available on gov.uk as they are published.

The House of Lords Appointments Commission is an independent, advisory non-departmental body of the Cabinet Office. The guidance on political donations was approved by the Commission in December 2019 as an internal document for members. It was subsequently published in January 2022 as a result of a Decision Notice by the Information Commissioner following a previous Freedom of Information request.

In line with Managing Public Money, The Framework Document for the Independent Offices (Civil Service Commission, Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the Commissioner for Public Appointments) was cleared by the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office and was reviewed by Cabinet Office ministers and by the Treasury Officer of Accounts (TOA) and the Spending Team prior to publication.

The Framework Document for the Independent Offices (Civil Service Commission, Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the Commissioner for Public Appointments) followed the clearance process set out in Managing Public Money and was reviewed by Cabinet Office ministers prior to publication in the usual way