Ben Obese-Jecty

For the Cabinet Office the figures are:

These are the devices reported by staff of the Cabinet Office as lost since July 5th 2024. Some of these devices may have been found since their initial reporting.

Office for Equality and Opportunity are part of the Cabinet Office and as such, lost/stolen laptops will be reported within the Cabinet Office data

Part 5 of the Equality Act 2010 provides protection against direct and indirect discrimination in employment and makes it unlawful for an employer or a recruitment agency to discriminate against an employee or someone applying for employment because of a protected characteristic.

Interns with, or applying for, a contract of employment that falls within the definition of “employment” are covered by the Equality Act 2010’s protections against discrimination based on sex, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, amongst other protected characteristics.

There are some circumstances in which employers may provide additional help to groups of people who share a protected characteristic, including interns. This is permitted by the positive action provisions in the Equality Act 2010. Whether positive action is permitted will depend on whether the test in those provisions is met.

Government guidance to help employers understand the difference between positive action and positive discrimination can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/positive-action-in-the-workplace-guidance-for-employers. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Code of Practice provides employers with support and can be found at: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/employment-code-practice-0.

Membership of the National Security Council (Nuclear) comprises the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Defence, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The membership is published on Gov.uk.

It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.

Membership of the National Security Council (Nuclear) comprises the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Defence, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The membership is published on Gov.uk.

It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.

The Government published the Resilience Action Plan on 8 July 2025 to set out its resilience strategy. It set out three core objectives to improve the UK’s resilience to the full range of risks: (1) continually assess how resilient the UK is in order to target interventions and resources; (2) enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience; and (3) strengthen the core public sector resilience system. These goals inform a series of activities to deliver greater resilience across the whole of society, as set out in the Resilience Action Plan.

The Government’s Resilience Action Plan has committed to do more to provide households with preparedness information. In September, the Prepare website was included in the message sent out to UK mobile phones as part of the Government’s test of the Emergency Alerts system. Mobile Network Operators have confirmed that the test of the Emergency Alert capability on 7th September reached 96% coverage in the UK. This represents an increase of 6% on the previous test, held in April 2023.

We continue to work with our local and national partners, including organisations from the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to highlight the importance of preparing for risks.

In wider communications activities, as part of Flood Action Week, running this year from 13th-19th October, the Environment Agency is encouraging people to prepare for flooding by taking proactive steps such as knowing their flood risk, preparing a flood plan, and signing up for flood warnings.

The Government is currently considering what further public communications activities might support improvements to public preparedness for emergencies. For example, the Cabinet Office published the first annual UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness in July 2025, and the results will be used to inform the development of future public preparedness communications and to monitor trends.

The Government’s Resilience Action Plan has committed to the delivery of the National Exercise Programme (NEP). This covers a range of whole-system risks, with the priority areas for testing informed by our assessment of cross-cutting and systemic vulnerabilities and capability gaps. The NEP sets out a timetable of annual Tier 1 exercises requiring a central response and cross-government coordination. Tier 1 exercises are scalable national exercises involving devolved governments and regional and local tier responders, as well as relevant industry engagement such as critical businesses and voluntary and community organisations. Government departments fully participate at senior official and ministerial levels.

The national exercise for 2025 is a pandemic preparedness exercise led by the Department of Health and Social Care. It is the first of its kind in nearly a decade and is set to be the biggest in UK history. It aims to test our ability to respond to a pandemic arising from a novel infectious disease, involving all regions and nations of the UK and thousands of participants. It is currently underway, with every UK government department participating. As part of the National Exercise Programme future government exercises are being coordinated to test all levels of government and those from across society to increase preparedness across the whole of society.

The Falcon Programme is facilitating the Cabinet Office's transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.

Falcon has completed the design and build of the platform working with Microsoft and the Integrated Corporate Services, and is now progressing into the delivery phase. Full migration of the Cabinet Office and its Arms Length Bodies is anticipated in 2026.

This is part of the drive to improve the productivity, security and efficiency of systems in the Cabinet Office and across Whitehall.

The Falcon Programme is facilitating the Cabinet Office's transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. The initial strategy, commenced under the previous administration, involved the Cabinet Office developing a bespoke IT system for this migration. Under this Government, the Cabinet Office has since identified and commenced the implementation of a more cost-effective strategy to deliver the Falcon Programme, entailing a move to the existing government service of Integrated Corporate Services. This will save over £20 million of public money compared to the strategy set under the previous administration.

This Government is committed to harnessing Artificial Intelligence to increase productivity in Whitehall and across the public sector, so that it can better serve the public. As part of this, the Cabinet Office is actively working to include Artificial Intelligence provisions within the Falcon Programme.

The UK’s Home Defence planning is closely aligned and coherent with our obligations associated with NATO plans. The government takes a NATO first approach to defence planning and remains committed to our responsibilities in the alliance. Further details are set out in the Strategic Defence Review, National Security Strategy and Resilience Action Plan.

Developing plans for civilian assistance to the military in a time of conflict is a key component of the Cabinet Offices Home Defence Programme (HDP). Working with the MoD and across Whitehall departments, the HDP will set a baseline understanding of the requirements of support that defence would need and how positions and roles may need to be backfilled in a conflict scenario. This work is ongoing.

The three pillars of the National Security Strategy 2025 set out comprehensive measures on how we will bolster the UK's overall security. Our approach to China, as a country that poses both a series of threats to UK national security and significant economic opportunities, necessarily cuts across all three pillars. From pillar one's focus on measures to bolster our security at home, to pillar two's emphasis on direct and high level engagement with China in support of UK interests to pillar three's focus on our international competitiveness and reducing our dependence on others.

The Network of Biosecurity Centres will strengthen and formalise the strong existing collaborations between the UK Health Security Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It will ensure we are better prepared for a crisis, can respond more effectively when an incident does happen, and deliver a more holistic, One Health and National Security approach to biological research.

The Network will support the Centres’ development and operation, with investment in the laboratory facilities of more than £1bn over the next four years to ensure we have the capabilities we need. Initial steps will include agreeing collaboration priorities, such as operation standards and skills development.

The Cabinet Office oversees implementation of the UK Biological Security Strategy. That includes ensuring we have the capabilities across government to protect the public from a spectrum of biological risks, no matter how they occur and no matter who or what they affect. Funding to tackle specific biological risks is based on the UK ‘Lead Government Department (LGD)’ model. Designated LGDs are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks, and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place - including the prioritisation of departmental spending to ensure the right capabilities are in place to mitigate risks, within allocated budgets.

The UK Biological Security Strategy is clear that a thriving life sciences sector is key to our biological security. The government has committed £380 million to engineering biology and £2bn to life sciences over the spending review period.

At the publication of the UK Biological Security Strategy in June 2023, we committed to update Parliament annually on the progress made to implement the Strategy. The government published its first UK Biosecurity Strategy Implementation report in July 2025, which sets out the range of short term commitments delivered. The report is available here.

The Network of Biosecurity Centres will strengthen and formalise the strong existing collaborations between the UK Health Security Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It will ensure we are better prepared for a crisis, can respond more effectively when an incident does happen, and deliver a more holistic, One Health and National Security approach to biological research.

The Network will support the Centres’ development and operation, with investment in the laboratory facilities of more than £1bn over the next four years to ensure we have the capabilities we need. Initial steps will include agreeing collaboration priorities, such as operation standards and skills development.

The Cabinet Office oversees implementation of the UK Biological Security Strategy. That includes ensuring we have the capabilities across government to protect the public from a spectrum of biological risks, no matter how they occur and no matter who or what they affect. Funding to tackle specific biological risks is based on the UK ‘Lead Government Department (LGD)’ model. Designated LGDs are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks, and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place - including the prioritisation of departmental spending to ensure the right capabilities are in place to mitigate risks, within allocated budgets.

The UK Biological Security Strategy is clear that a thriving life sciences sector is key to our biological security. The government has committed £380 million to engineering biology and £2bn to life sciences over the spending review period.

At the publication of the UK Biological Security Strategy in June 2023, we committed to update Parliament annually on the progress made to implement the Strategy. The government published its first UK Biosecurity Strategy Implementation report in July 2025, which sets out the range of short term commitments delivered. The report is available here.

The Network of Biosecurity Centres will strengthen and formalise the strong existing collaborations between the UK Health Security Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It will ensure we are better prepared for a crisis, can respond more effectively when an incident does happen, and deliver a more holistic, One Health and National Security approach to biological research.

The Network will support the Centres’ development and operation, with investment in the laboratory facilities of more than £1bn over the next four years to ensure we have the capabilities we need. Initial steps will include agreeing collaboration priorities, such as operation standards and skills development.

The Cabinet Office oversees implementation of the UK Biological Security Strategy. That includes ensuring we have the capabilities across government to protect the public from a spectrum of biological risks, no matter how they occur and no matter who or what they affect. Funding to tackle specific biological risks is based on the UK ‘Lead Government Department (LGD)’ model. Designated LGDs are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks, and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place - including the prioritisation of departmental spending to ensure the right capabilities are in place to mitigate risks, within allocated budgets.

The UK Biological Security Strategy is clear that a thriving life sciences sector is key to our biological security. The government has committed £380 million to engineering biology and £2bn to life sciences over the spending review period.

At the publication of the UK Biological Security Strategy in June 2023, we committed to update Parliament annually on the progress made to implement the Strategy. The government published its first UK Biosecurity Strategy Implementation report in July 2025, which sets out the range of short term commitments delivered. The report is available here.

The Home Defence Programme was established in August 2024 to build the UK’s resilience to any potential escalation to conflict. It is an evolving and enduring programme of work which provides defence, security and resilience planning, focused on aligning military and civil effort in the event of a period of crisis and international hostilities affecting the UK, informed by and reflecting the recommendations from government strategies, including the Strategic Defence Review, National Security Strategy and Resilience Action Plan.

As set out in the National Security Strategy and the Resilience Action Plan (RAP), protection and defence of Critical National Infrastructure is a central strand of the Cabinet Office-led cross-Government Home Defence Programme. This is overseen centrally by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. The commitments from the RAP will be delivered over the course of this Parliament.

The CNI Knowledge Base is a secure digital tool that is designed to be a “single source of truth for UK CNI’’. CNI Knowledge Base is part of the National Situation Centre.

The CNI Knowledge Base’s roll-out across the government is complete. The Knowledge Base maps both physical and logical CNI systems and the supporting systems which keep them running. This enables government to identify linkages and dependencies between systems and across CNI sectors. Departments are already using it to understand key CNI systems and the potential impacts of hazards, threats and risks. We are continually introducing new features and onboarding more users.

The government is working tirelessly to improve the cyber resilience of our most critical services and systems, including the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). Improving our understanding of the cyber risk we are carrying as a nation is fundamental to this. In order to build a better understanding of cyber risk, we are developing a new Cyber Resilience Index (CRI) which will build on existing measures of cyber resilience to provide a cross-sector, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI, allowing us to target resilience building efforts.

The Cabinet Office is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre and CNI Lead Government Departments to progress the CRI. We are keen for this to be a collaborative process so that the Index delivers for all CNI sectors. More widely, the upcoming Cyber Security & Resilience Bill will also address the evolving cyber risk picture for CNI sectors across the UK.

As set out in the Resilience Action Plan on 14 July, the Government is actively engaging with the private sector to ensure a whole of society approach to building and strengthening resilience. This takes place via a range of conduits to build on existing relationships and expertise, including through business networks, such as Resilience First and the Confederation of British Industry. Lead Government Departments hold responsibility for sector specific engagement, and the National Technical Authorities (National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority) also provide advice to UK industry, including industry classified as Critical National Infrastructure, on security and resilience best practice.

There are no plans to publish a list of business engagements, given the different fora that these conversations take place within.

The National Situation Centre – established in 2021 – provides situational awareness for crisis response and national resilience. It is regarded internationally as a benchmark for Government use of data in crisis. The National Situation Centre is part of COBR.

The National Situation Centre ensures that ministers and officials have access to relevant and timely data for decision making. More than 700 anonymised and aggregated data sets have been mapped or ingested and, at short notice, analysis can be produced for almost 90% of risks identified in the National Risk Register. Dashboards are hosted on a dedicated secure platform, built by the National Situation Centre, and are shared across government and with the devolved governments. A number of bespoke reporting tools have either been created or are under development to provide insight into the most serious risks.

The National Situation Centre has also developed a “digital National Risk Register” platform to interrogate the impacts of a risk, or a number of risks. It allows users to see the impacts which the materialisation of a risk may cause and immediately determine which of those impacts are compounded if multiple risks were to occur concurrently. If a new pandemic were to emerge, we would be able to consider complex, concurrent scenarios in minutes.

The National Situation Centre is also responsible for sending Emergency Alerts to mobile phones, as part of the COBR process.

Online training courses provided by the College for National Security are open to all civil servants, public servants and crown servants. Attendance at events held by the College are approved on a first come first served basis. For certain practitioner courses, a short application process is sometimes required. When required, these applications are anonymously evaluated based on the applicant’s experience, interest and ambition in the subject. The College will sometimes curate the learning groups to ensure a good mix of departments. As its learner base grows, the College will keep its systems under review.

The UK’s Procurement Act, introduced by the previous administration, came into force on 24 February 2025 alongside a National Procurement Policy Statement aligning procurement to this Government's missions.

This Government also announced on 26 June 2025 a new 10-week consultation entitled Public Procurement - Growing British industry, jobs and skills.

These reforms aim to go further to strengthen the UK’s economic resilience and support British businesses. Our proposals will protect supply chains, support our businesses, create good local jobs, and deliver greater value for taxpayers.

We will set out our response and further measures shortly.

Sickness absence data for the Civil Service, including departmental breakdowns is published annually, and is available here: Sickness absence in the Civil Service - GOV.UK. The next update will be for the year ending 31st March 2025.

The Cabinet Office’s National Situation Centre is responsible for creating the Biothreats Radar. The Radar brings together information on human, animal, and plant health risks to create a powerful, near real-time view of emerging biological threats and the impact they could have.

The UK Government is committed to building the security and resilience of UK critical national infrastructure (CNI). On 8 July this year, the Government published the Resilience Action Plan, which sets out this government's strategic approach to increasing the UK's resilience against the risks the UK faces.

To improve CNI resilience, UK Government has committed to continue delivery of CNI Knowledge Base - the UK government’s world-leading CNI mapping tool; map and fully use the complex network of reserved and devolved standards for CNI sectors, which are fundamental in holding industry to account and assuring the resilience of UK CNI; develop a new Cyber Resilience Index to build on existing cyber resilience measures to provide a cross-sector, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI; and raise resilience by using UK government resources, including the expertise of our National Technical Authorities (including National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority), to provide world-leading advice on security and resilience best practice directly to businesses.

As set out in the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence Review, the Cabinet Office led Home Defence Programme is developing greater preparedness against a changing international risk picture. Work to bolster the resilience of UK Critical National Infrastructure forms one strand of the wider programme. These areas are being developed in close cooperation with the MOD and Whitehall departments.

The Government has been deeply concerned about the lack of transparency to Parliament and to the public as a result of the super-injunction about the data protection breach from February 2022 relating to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy.

As the Secretary of State for Defence stated to the House on 15 July, the super-injunction was unprecedented. The Government looks forward to engaging with any forthcoming select committee inquiries.

The UK-France Nuclear Steering Group meetings will be convened and attended by senior government officials representing the UK Cabinet Office and the Presidency of the French republic as well as other Ministries and organisations. The Steering Group will regularly update senior UK and French Ministers on the items under discussion. Ministerial discussions between the UK and France will take place as required.

The George Cross Committee assesses all recommendations for civilian gallantry awards. The Committee's recommendations are submitted by the Prime Minister to The King, who awards the honour. If an award is recommended and subsequently approved, those nominated for gallantry awards are asked if they are willing to accept. Unlike the King’s Birthday and New Year Honours Lists, there is no set timeline for notification and publication of gallantry lists.

This information is not held by the Cabinet Office.

The UK France Nuclear Steering Group will be chaired by the Presidency of the Republic on the French side and by the Cabinet Office on the UK side. It will include participants from other Ministries and organisations as required. The first meeting will take place in the autumn.