Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to encourage Government-funded agencies and departments to move their offices outside London.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Plans are in place for the creation of multi-departmental government Hubs in strategic locations outside London. These will further consolidate our office estate, whilst helping to attract and retain staff by stronger collaboration between departments and enabling staff to grow careers locally.
We are consolidating our estate in central London and, since 2010, have reduced the number of offices from 181 to 54. Rationalisation will continue, enabling more multi-departmental use of HQ buildings and civil servant moves to peripheries where property costs are lower.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what powers the National Cyber Security Centre will have to ensure that key infrastructure providers act on the advice it gives.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The National Cyber Security Centre will be a unified source of advice for business, including owners and providers of critical national infrastructure. The Centre will work with lead government departments and regulators who are responsible for ensuring that the risks against our critical national infrastructure are appropriately managed by those running it.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure (a) that all Government services are available through the gov.uk website and (b) that that website remains operational at all times.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Since its launch in October 2012, GOV.UK has handled over 2.6 billion visits. The site needs to continue operating during major events such as the annual Self Assessment peak and a national emergency. The GOV.UK website has been designed to handle issues and failures in a way which would not impact the public. We have robust incident management processes in place and regularly run disaster recovery simulations to test our response to any outages.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent steps his Department has taken to encourage small businesses to apply for government contracts.
Answered by Matt Hancock
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Stroud on 27 April UIN: 904721.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make representations to the Office for National Statistics on including a separate ethnicity box for Sikh in the (a) 2021 census and (b) 2017 test questionnaire.
Answered by Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effectiveness of auto-enrolment onto the electoral roll for all UK citizens eligible to vote.
Answered by John Penrose
I have considered a range of proposals from local authorities and civil society organisations that could change how registration is currently delivered.
We are keen to explore further possibilities in this area but are concerned there may be tension between some forms of automatic registration and the principles underpinning Individual Electoral Registration, namely individual responsibility and ownership over registering to vote.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of (a) increasing the powers of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and (b) merging the office of that Commissioner with the office of the Health Service Commission for England.
Answered by John Penrose
The Government is committed to the reform and modernisation of the public service ombudsman sector. In December 2015 we published our response to the consultation on the recommendations made by Robert Gordon’s report on this matter, and we intend to publish draft legislation to create a new Public Service Ombudsman, which will encompass the existing jurisdictions of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the Local Government Ombudsman.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the feasibility of introducing a centralised, national electoral register.
Answered by John Penrose
Electoral registers are compiled and maintained locally by Electoral Registration Officers primarily for the purposes of running Parliamentary and local elections in their area. A centralised, national electoral register would not necessarily help them do this, and would potentially create concerns about how government handles citizens personal data, so we have made no assessment of this kind.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he has taken to increase the level of voter registration in schools, colleges and universities.
Answered by John Penrose
The Government has made it easier and quicker to register to vote than ever before through online registration. Since June 2014, 3.6 million people aged 16-24 have applied to register to vote, with 2.7 million of these applications made online. The Government has also worked with various youth organisations such as NUS and Sixth Form Colleges Association, to encourage voter registration among students.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to improve the diversity of (a) public appointments and (b) staffing in his Department.
Answered by Matt Hancock
All public appointments are made on merit following a fair and open competition in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s Code of Practice. The Government is committed to increasing the diversity of public appointments. The Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office supports departments on all issues relating to the diversity of public appointments. Steps we are taking to increase diversity include streamlining the application process, placing an emphasis on ability over previous experience and increasing awareness of opportunities by using a central website, social media and engaging with a variety of diversity networks and groups.
The Cabinet Office recruits staff in line with the Civil Service Commissioners Principles which ensures that candidates are selected based on fair and open competition and on merit. To reduce bias in selection, the Cabinet Office will be implementing name-blind recruitment methods from 1st April. In addition, recruitment and selection training, which has a core focus on raising awareness of unconscious bias, is also offered to all Chairs of recruitment panels.
On 24 March, we published our 2016 Talent Action Plan for the Civil Service. It provides a progress update on initiatives to increase diversity in the Civil Service, including cross-Government talent programmes aimed at under-represented groups. It also sets out how we will increase social mobility in the Civil Service. The 2016 Talent Action Plan is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/talent-action-plan-2016-removing-the-barriers-to-success