Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what mechanism his Department has in place on utilising Deaf-led expertise on British Sign Language in AI procurement.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The procurement of Artificial intelligent tools as a result of a new or amended digital service requires compliance with the GDS Service Manual (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual) and a service assessment. This manual includes the inclusion of accessibility and assisted digital and user research, to ensure procurement decisions cover a range of accessibility needs, based on user feedback.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether procurement policy notes issued by his Department provide guidance on British Sign Language AI commissioning.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The procurement of Artificial intelligent tools as a result of a new or amended digital service requires compliance with the GDS Service Manual (https://www.gov.uk/service-manual) and a service assessment. This manual includes the inclusion of accessibility and assisted digital and user research, to ensure procurement decisions cover a range of accessibility needs, based on user feedback.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department incorporates (a) Deaf-led infrastructure investment and (b) linguistic inclusion in social value assessments for procurement.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office, in compliance with the Social Value Act 2012 and Procurement Policy Note 002 utilises the Government’s social value model toolkit to apply social value to all above-threshold procurements.
In practice, this involves selecting one out of eight Social Value Outcomes which is then evaluated as part of a procurement exercise. One of the choices which can be selected is 'Fair Work,' which, when selected, allows us to require suppliers to demonstrate benefits in deaf-led infrastructure investment and linguistic inclusion.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the document entitled Draft terms of reference for the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, what updates his Department has provided on relevant developments in its area of work to that group since 2019.
Answered by John Glen
Ministers and officials have regular discussions with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over a range of issues. More broadly, I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 1 March 2024, Official Report, PQ 16019 on tackling anti-Muslim hatred.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of civil service job advertisements included information on salary band in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Data on Civil Service Job advertisements which included information on salary bands is available below. This is presented on an annual basis, as Civil service jobs information is available on an annual basis rather than by tax year.
2021 - 59,413 (95.82%) of jobs listed on civil service jobs in 2023 include salary data*.
2022 - 64,928 (95.90%) of jobs listed on civil service jobs in 2023 include salary data.
2023 (up to 30 May 2023) - 27,644 (96.87%) of jobs listed on civil service jobs in 2023 include salary data.
* salary data is defined as either salary banding (min to max) or where it shows the starting salary only
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that the Covid-19 inquiry hears views from people with protected characteristics including (a) ethnicity, (b) disability and (c) sex.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Covid-19 inquiry's terms of reference require it to consider any disparities evident in the impact of the pandemic on different protected characteristics including (a) ethnicity, (b) disability and (c) sex, and to listen to the experiences of those most affected by the pandemic. The inquiry’s process and procedure for fulfilling its terms of reference are a matter for its independent chair.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that statistics with sufficient sample sizes on the pay gap for women by ethnicity are published on an annual basis; and what steps he will take to ensure those statistics are used to aid understanding of pay discrepancies and inform government action.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon. Member's Parliamentary Question of 11 October is attached.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the availability of ONS data relating to pay gaps, including reference tables produced on an annual basis showing the (a) median hourly pay and (b) percentage difference between hourly earnings by (i) gender, (ii) ethnicity and (iii) age.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon. Member's Parliamentary Question of 11 October is attached.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress has been made towards the appointment of a chair of the independent review into the impact of the pre-2000 ban on LGBT+ personnel in the military.
Answered by Leo Docherty
The Lord Etherton Kt PC QC has been appointed as Chair of the Independent LGBT Veterans Review.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many private companies Ministers and officials in his Department proactively approached to discuss their prospective or continued participation in the ventilator challenge.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
On 16 March, the Prime Minister launched the ventilator challenge to meet the UK’s need for mechanical ventilators to fight COVID-19. Following a sift of more than 5,000 initial offers of help, Cabinet Office held preliminary talks with potential suppliers and manufacturers and began a process to assess and develop shortlisted designs and scale them up. The programme was headed by a team of officials from the Government Commercial Function in the Cabinet Office. The NAO has published a comprehensive report on the programme which can be found here.
During the process, 12 technical design reviews were held with the teams of companies working together on designs, staffed by clinicians, the MHRA and officials, the reviews looked at the feasibility of a design delivering the full range of functionality required. Those design reviews reduced the list of potentially viable designs down to fewer than 10, who were paired with companies able to provide the components and help with the scale up. In the end around 100 companies were involved in the manufacturing.
As of December, there were over 30,000 mechanical ventilators available to patients across the United Kingdom. This compares to around 9,000 at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, described this as a “benchmark for procurement”.