Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of care workers working for less than the National Living Wage in Fylde constituency.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 16th October is attached.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Crown Commercial Service considered the (a) cost and (b) accessibility of the RM6277 framework to small independent recruitment agencies during the design and tendering process.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) considered bidding costs and accessibility for small independent agencies in the design and tendering of RM6277: Non‑Clinical Staffing, including lotting, proportionate evaluation and market engagement.
Small-medium enterprises, including small independent recruitment agencies, secured over 70% of places across lots 1 to 6 and 46% in lot 7. This is in line with the government’s strategy to back small and medium-sized businesses.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the RM6277 framework agreement on small and medium-sized recruitment agencies supplying non-clinical staff to the NHS.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) designed the RM6277 Non Clinical Staffing commercial agreement with small-medium enterprise (SMEs) accessibility in mind. SMEs secured over 70% of places across lots 1 to 6 and 46% in lot 7.
CCS commercial agreements are not mandatory, and provide a compliant route to procure common goods and services. It is the responsibility of each organisation, including the NHS, to determine whether to use a framework.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what support his Department has provided to bereaved families of infected individuals who died without receiving compensation to ensure awareness of the new registration process.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The delivery of compensation, including the opening of a registration service, is a matter for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA). IBCA opened their registration service on 9th October to allow people to register their intent to claim online. Those who are unable to register online or who require additional support can call IBCA’s dedicated registration support line on 0141 471 8886. Additionally, an individual can ask someone to register on their behalf. This could be a family member, trusted adult, legal representative, carer or someone with power of attorney. IBCA has worked with infected blood charities and community groups to raise awareness of the registration service opening.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority’s new registration service is accessible to claimants who (a) are digitally excluded and (b) have limited digital literacy.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The delivery of compensation, including the opening of a registration service, is a matter for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA). IBCA opened their registration service on 9th October to allow people to register their intent to claim online. Those who are unable to register online or who require additional support can call IBCA’s dedicated registration support line on 0141 471 8886. Additionally, an individual can ask someone to register on their behalf. This could be a family member, trusted adult, legal representative, carer or someone with power of attorney. IBCA has worked with infected blood charities and community groups to raise awareness of the registration service opening.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to his Department's press notice entitled Civil Service staff networks to only meet outside working hours and have all events signed off by senior managers, published on 23 September 2025, if he will set out the criteria used to determine whether a staff network event directly benefits an organisation.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
In circumstances where organisers believe that the event could be attended during working time, it will be for the Senior Civil Servant signing-off the event to determine whether it is directly related to a business outcome or individual learning and development. Where this is the case individuals would also need to obtain line manager approval before attending.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to his Department's press notice entitled Civil Service staff networks to only meet outside working hours and have all events signed off by senior managers, published on 23 September 2025, how many civil service staff network events were considered inappropriate in the 12 months prior to the issuance of the guidance on civil service staff networks.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office does not hold data relating to the number of events deemed inappropriate.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate she has made of the total value of funds likely to be recovered through the Voluntary repayment of Covid-19 funding scheme by 31 December 2025.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
This government is leaving no stone unturned to investigate and recover public funds lost to fraud and error during the pandemic - getting back what is owed to the British people.
At the recommendation of the Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner, the government launched the Voluntary Repayment Scheme on September 12th. The scheme is one element in a wider package of measures recommended by the Commissioner and will provide crucial learnings for his final report.
The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) has not made an estimate of the value of funds likely to be recovered. The scheme is subject to uncertainty due to its novel nature, the time elapsed since the pandemic, and the time it takes for departments to report recovery success back to the PSFA. However, the PSFA will undertake a comprehensive assessment of the scheme’s impact once it’s concluded.
The scheme will continue to provide individuals who received money from COVID-19 support schemes which they did not need or were not eligible for, an opportunity to repay until December 2025, before the introduction of new investigatory powers in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish an account of the total cost of the government reshuffle, listing totals for (a) redundancy payments, (b) severance payments, (c) relocation costs, and (d) administrative costs associated with ministerial changes.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Severance reform
This Government has reformed ministerial severance payments to ensure that payments are both proportionate and fair. Ministers are now expected to forgo their entitlement to a ministerial severance payment if they have served in office for less than six months or leave office following a serious breach of the Ministerial Code. Ministers who return to office within three months of leaving will be asked to forgo their salary until the end of that three-month period and ministers who have seriously breached the Business Appointment Rules will be expected to repay any severance payment received.
Severance payments
Details of severance payments received by ministers and special advisers are routinely published in the relevant department’s Annual Report and Accounts. Any severance costs associated with the September reshuffle will be included as part of the 2025-26 Annual Report and Accounts which will be published in late summer 2026.
Relocation costs
Relocation costs are not recorded by the Cabinet Office
Administrative costs
Any administrative costs associated with the reshuffle will be part of the costs of running the department and will not be published separately in the Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will set how the Public Sector Fraud Authority is working with local authorities to prevent fraud at the local level.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) works closely with local authorities to prevent fraud through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), which is one of the PSFA’s key data and analytics services.
The NFI specialises in data matching, which involves comparing sets of data electronically, such as the council tax records of an authority, against other records held by the same or another authority, to see to what extent they match.
The NFI is vital in tackling fraud in local authority spending. This includes the removal of fraudsters from social housing properties, ensuring they go to those families in genuine need, and cracking down on blue badge fraud - of which 22,000 fraudulent permits were cancelled in the last year alone. It also has a strong record of delivering outcomes for local authorities. To date, the NFI has detected, prevented and recovered over £3bn in fraud and error.
The NFI is collaborating closely with local authorities to tackle fraud in other areas of local spending. For example, the introduction of the Legislative Reform (Disclosure of Adult Social Care Data) Order 2025, will once again ensure that fraud in adult social care spending can be identified and investigated by local authorities.