Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to page 43 of their policy paper Spending Review 2025: Departmental Efficiency Plans, published on 11 June, what was the average span of managerial control across the Cabinet Office by grade in 2024–25; and how many line management posts they expect will be removed to achieve the £5 million saving identified through organisational restructure by 2028–29.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The average span of control of line managers by grade in FY 2024/25 has been presented in the table below.
Line Manager Grade | Average Span of Control |
Perm Sec | 12.5 |
SCS3 | 7.6 |
SCS2 | 5.3 |
SCS1 | 4.5 |
Grade 6 | 3.5 |
Grade 7 | 2.0 |
SEO | 3.1 |
HEO | 3.3 |
EO | 6.2 |
In line with the 2025 Spending Review, we are restructuring the Cabinet Office into a more strategic, specialised, and smaller department. Our focus is on identifying budgetary savings rather than meeting a specific headcount target.
So far, 540 employees have been approved to leave through the Voluntary Exit Scheme.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to the Spending Review 2025, whether they will publish a full breakdown of how the £50 million Transformation Fund allocation for civil service learning and development will be spent, including any evaluation criteria, delivery partners, expected cost per learner, and projected savings against current spend.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Cabinet Office has secured £50 million from the Transformation Fund to increase workforce productivity, including supporting the implementation of a future skills model for government by May 2029 when the next iteration of the learning framework contracts will expire. We are now establishing the programme of work to make this phased transition, including undertaking full business cases where appropriate.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to page 43 of their policy paper Spending Review 2025: Departmental Efficiency Plans, published on 11 June, what percentage of the Cabinet Office’s commercial contracts by value are due for renewal or renegotiation by 2028–29; and what proportion of the £3 million efficiency savings relating to procurement has already been contractually secured.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
21% by value of the Cabinet Office’s live contracts are intended for renewal between 1 April 2026 and 31st March 2029.
The Cabinet Office published our technical efficiency delivery plan along with all other departments as part of the Spending Review 2025. This included a commitment to delivering £1m in annual efficiencies related to procurement in 2027/28, increasing to £3m in 2028/29. We are in active negotiations to begin delivery of the efficiencies.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to page 19 of the Government Strategy for Grants Management 2023–2025 published in September 2023, what are (1) the current total budget, (2) staffing level, and (3) key performance indicators, for the Government Grants Managed Service; and which government departments and arm’s-length bodies currently use the Government Grants Managed Service.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The current year budget is cost-neutral to the Cabinet Office. Operational costs depend upon the value of grants which go through the pilot, as resources are flexed according to demand. Customer departments and ALBs pay for the administration of these pilot grants.
There is currently a central programme team of 7 FTE, with operations staff numbers variable, according to demand.
A monitoring and evaluation approach and plan was developed in December 2023 and agreed with the Evaluation Task Force (ETF). A set of KPIs was agreed, focused on the cost to serve of grant administration in GGMS, versus departments’ usual approaches to grant and the median baseline cost. There are also KPIs related to the identification of fraud and error through the Spotlight due diligence tool.
Eight departments, arm’s-length bodies or other public bodies are participating in the pilot: the Home Office, the Department for Transport, the Department for Science, Innovation, & Technology, the Money & Pensions Service, the Department for Education, the Northern Ireland Office, UK Space Agency and UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 27 May (HL7225), who authorises exemptions that allow newly created arm's-length bodies to be headquartered in London; what criteria apply to those exemptions; and which bodies have received exemptions in the past 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Places for Growth is supporting thriving civil service communities in locations across the UK. As part of that, no new ALBs will be created in London unless by exception. Cabinet Office Ministers are able to grant exemptions for new ALBs to be headquartered in London based on their workforce and operational requirements and these requests are dealt with on a case by case basis. In the last 12 months no exemptions have been issued to allow new ALBs to be based in London.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the net cash requirement for the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme in each year since 2013–14.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The net cash requirement for the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme in each year since 2013–14 is available within The Civil Superannuation Annual Report and Accounts which can be found on the Civil Service Pensions website. The information is as follows:
Year | Net cash requirement (£, millions) |
2013-14 | £2,197 |
2014–15 | £1,509 |
2015–16 | £2,245 |
2016-17 | £2,277.8 |
2017-18 | £2,135.4 |
2018-19 | £2,001 |
2019-20 | £1,200 |
2020-21 | £1,100 |
2021-22 | £774.2 |
2022-23 | £846.9 |
2023-24 | £943.8 |
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of eligible grant schemes were advertised on (1) Find a Grant, and (3) Apply for a Grant, in the past financial year; and whether they set adoption targets for each of those services.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
In the previous financial year (2024-25), 69 (64%) eligible grant schemes from central government departments were listed on Find a Grant, which translated to 409 separate grant advertisements, as some schemes are disaggregated into smaller funds. Apply for a Grant hosted 25 applications related to 9 schemes or 8% of those eligible.
Adoption targets have been set to drive uptake for both services. Find a Grant is mandated for all central government departments and arm's length bodies for eligible, competed or criteria-based grant schemes, with a target of 100% compliance. While Apply for a Grant is not mandated, it has an adoption target of 30%. The Cabinet Office is working with all departments to increase uptake of these services.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the service cost for the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme as a percentage of pensionable pay in each year since 2013–14 .
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Civil Superannuation Report discloses the service cost for the Scheme, but we do not calculate the pensionable pay for active members of the Scheme. The Civil Superannuation reports are in the public domain and can be accessed via the Civil Service Pensions website.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Civil Superannuation Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, published 18 December 2024 (HC 481), what was the average pensionable pay growth across active members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme in 2023–24; how that average compared to the pay growth assumption used in the 2022–23 accounts; and whether the level of growth in 2023–24 was consistent with the Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance issued for that year.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
In the pay remit for 2023-24, departments were able to offer average awards up to 5%, consisting of up to 4.5% across the delegated grades plus 0.5% targeted for the lower pay bands. This compares to 2022-23 where departments were able to make average pay awards up to 2%, with additional flexibility to pay up to a further 1% where they could demonstrate targeting of the pay award to address specific priorities in their workforce and pay strategies.
The Civil Superannuation Report and account does not contain the average pensionable pay growth for active members of the Scheme.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have conducted an analysis comparing the per-member administrative costs of the (1) Civil Service Pension Scheme, (2) NHS Pension Scheme, (3) Teachers' Pension Scheme, (4) Armed Forces Pension Scheme, and (5) Local Government Pension Scheme, to comparable private sector schemes; and if so, whether they will place a copy of that analysis in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) is a participant in an annual benchmarking of both public and private sector pension schemes, provided by an external supplier for schemes willing to participate in the benchmarking survey.
The benchmarking outlines the CSPS administration, compared to a peer group of 11 schemes of similar size and nature , including those mentioned in the question.
The benchmarking report contains information on the ‘per member costs’ associated with the CSPS, benchmarked against the 11 peer groups.
As was the case under the previous administration, these annual benchmarking reports are not published.