Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 July 2023 to Question 190603 on Cabinet Office: Members, what comparative assessment he has made of the performance of each Department at meeting the 20-day target.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of Members’ correspondence. As set out in the Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk and in the response to Question 190603, the deadlines set by Departments for responding to correspondence should not exceed 20 working days and they are strongly encouraged to set more challenging deadlines to ensure greater efficiency in responding to correspondence.
While each Department is responsible for managing their own timeliness in responding to correspondence, the Cabinet Office, as owners of the Guide to Handling Correspondence, regularly engages with correspondence officials in Government Departments to discuss and review performance and issues that may be impacting performance. The Cabinet Office also publishes correspondence performance data on GOV.UK on a regular basis, detailing departmental performance in handling correspondence. This can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1145941/Data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-MPs-and-Peers-in-2022.docx.pdf
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 July to Question 190603 on Cabinet Office: Members, what the deadline to respond to correspondence set by each Government Department was as of 5 July 2023.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of Members’ correspondence. As set out in the Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk and in the response to Question 190603, the deadlines set by Departments for responding to correspondence should not exceed 20 working days and they are strongly encouraged to set more challenging deadlines to ensure greater efficiency in responding to correspondence.
While each Department is responsible for managing their own timeliness in responding to correspondence, the Cabinet Office, as owners of the Guide to Handling Correspondence, regularly engages with correspondence officials in Government Departments to discuss and review performance and issues that may be impacting performance. The Cabinet Office also publishes correspondence performance data on GOV.UK on a regular basis, detailing departmental performance in handling correspondence. This can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1145941/Data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-MPs-and-Peers-in-2022.docx.pdf
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant the Answer of 3 July 2023 to Question 90603 on Cabinet Office: Members, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on factors that may be impacting their Department's performance in responding to correspondence.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of Members’ correspondence. As set out in the Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk and in the response to Question 190603, the deadlines set by Departments for responding to correspondence should not exceed 20 working days and they are strongly encouraged to set more challenging deadlines to ensure greater efficiency in responding to correspondence.
While each Department is responsible for managing their own timeliness in responding to correspondence, the Cabinet Office, as owners of the Guide to Handling Correspondence, regularly engages with correspondence officials in Government Departments to discuss and review performance and issues that may be impacting performance. The Cabinet Office also publishes correspondence performance data on GOV.UK on a regular basis, detailing departmental performance in handling correspondence. This can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1145941/Data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-MPs-and-Peers-in-2022.docx.pdf
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 12 June 2023 to Question 188915, what steps he is taking to increase compliance with the 20-day target across Departments.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Departments across government work to strict internal deadlines to ensure responses are progressed within 20 working days. The Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk clearly sets out the importance this government attaches to the effective and efficient handling of correspondence received from Members.
Whilst 4 weeks is the deadline to respond to correspondence, departments are encouraged to set more challenging deadlines.
Officials working on correspondence across government departments are encouraged to engage regularly with policy officials, to ensure responses going out to Members are drafted and progressed as efficiently as possible. Cabinet Office regularly engages with correspondence officials in other Government departments to discuss performance and what may be impacting their performance.
As set out in the response to Question 188915, Government Ministers are expected to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence and I will continue to drive that message. Every effort must be made to reply to correspondence promptly and within the original deadline.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the average time is for a Department to respond to casework queries from Rt hon. and hon. Members.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence.
As per the Cabinet Office’s Guide to Handling Correspondence on gov.uk, departments and agencies should aim to respond to correspondence from MPs within a 20 working day target deadline, but are advised to consider setting more challenging deadlines than 20 working days to ensure a better minimum service level.
Performance data on responses to correspondence from Parliamentarians for 2022 can be found on gov.uk. This data shows the volume of correspondence received by government departments and agencies from Parliamentarians and the percentage that was responded to within each department’s target deadline as well as the 20 working day maximum target deadline.
I expect Government Ministers to respond quickly and effectively to Members’ correspondence and I will continue to drive that message.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the (a) number of job vacancies in each sector and (b) rate of change in those vacancies over the last five years.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of redundancies in the charity sector.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to change paragraph 1.20 of the civil service nationality rules guidance in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by David Lidington
There are currently no plans to change paragraph 1.20 of the Civil Service Nationality Rules guidance in the unlikely scenario that the UK leaves the EU without a deal. EEA nationals who are civil servants on exit day will be able to continue to be civil servants; and it will continue to be possible for the civil service to recruit EEA nationals.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the cost to the public purse would be of not charging for applications for Settled Status from non-UK EU nationals employed directly by the Government.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The number of non-UK EU citizens employed across the Civil Service is not consistently collected across government, therefore it is not possible to estimate the cost of not charging for settled status for non-UK EU nationals employed directly by the Government.
The UK Government currently does not plan to pay the Settled Status for its non-UK EU citizen employees. The fee is set at an affordable rate (£65), less than the cost of an UK passport.
We are committed to supporting our EU citizen employees across the Civil Service, the important engagement with EU national networks across government will continue over the coming months.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to change paragraph 1.20 of the civil service nationality rules in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
There is no paragraph 1.20 in the Civil Service Nationality Rules themselves. There is a paragraph 1.20 in the Civil Service Nationality Rules Guidance which states that ‘EEA nationals are eligible for employment in all non-reserved posts in Civil Service’.