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Written Question
Cabinet Office: CTF Partners
Monday 24th June 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his (a) Department and (b) Department's agencies have entered into contracts with CTF Partners since 2015.

Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Records of Government contracts above £10,000 in central government and £25,000 in the wider public sector are published on Contracts Finder: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search

These show no records of any contracts with CTF Partners since 2015


Written Question
Politics and Government: Scotland
Tuesday 14th May 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish the results of the polling his Department recently commissioned from Ipsos-Mori on Scottish opinion on the state of the union.

Answered by Kevin Foster

The Government considers publication of research in line with relevant guidelines.


Written Question
Cabinet Office: Emerdata
Monday 13th May 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether (a) his Department, (b) his Department's agencies and (c) his Department's associated public bodies have entered into contracts with Emerdata Limited in the last year.

Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Records of contracts above £10,000 in central government and £25,000 in the wider public sector are published on Contracts Finder: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search


Written Question
Public Bodies
Thursday 28th March 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when the Government plans to publish the Public Bodies 2018 report.

Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

The Public Bodies 2018-19 report was published on Friday 22 March 2019.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-bodies-2018-19-report


Written Question
Cabinet Office: Social Media
Monday 18th March 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department has spent on social media advertising related to the UK leaving the EU in each of the last 24 months.

Answered by Chloe Smith

Cabinet Office spending on social media advertising related to the UK leaving the EU is available to November 2018. Spend for November 2018 onwards will be published in due course in line with normal data releases. Spend to November 2018 has been made public in previous data releases. This can be accessed at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-spend-data.


Written Question
Cabinet Office: Public Records
Friday 22nd February 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many records his Department holds that have reached the time limit for their transfer to the National Archives but have not been transferred.

Answered by Chloe Smith

The Cabinet Office is committed to meeting its obligations under the Public Records Act 1958 and we now release more records more often than ever before. The Cabinet Office is currently on track to transfer records on time as we transition to the 20 year rule. This year we will open records from 1995 and 1996 in compliance with the Public Records Act.

However, the Cabinet Office does not hold information about the number of individual records held so this figure could only be provided at disproportionate cost by counting each individual record. Records are retained in accordance with the requirements of the Public Records Act 1958.

The National Archives has recently assessed the Prime Ministerial and Cabinet Office’s compliance with the Public Records Act as good: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/manage-information/ima/ima-reports-action-plans/


Written Question
Healthcare Environmental Services
Tuesday 22nd January 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what correspondence his Department has had with organisations on Healthcare Environmental Services in the last year.

Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

There has been one face to face meeting between cross government officials and Healthcare Environmental Services held at the Cabinet Office. It is not appropriate to publish the minutes of that meeting. These were extremely sensitive discussions about managing a very difficult and pressing problem.

With respect to disclosure of correspondence, it would be entirely inappropriate to publish this for many reasons:

  • it would be prejudicial to commercial interests, not just of HES but other organisations involved in attempting to resolve the matter (e.g. the current contractor, Mitie)
  • it would be prejudicial to the efficient working of government, since some of it is in the sphere of policy formation
  • it includes sensitive information disclosed on a confidential basis by the Environmental Agency and other parties
  • it includes information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation into HES which it would clearly not be appropriate to disclose
  • there is also the potential for some of that information to be protected by legal privilege.

Written Question
Healthcare Environmental Services
Tuesday 22nd January 2019

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish the minutes and notes of meetings between his officials and Healthcare Environmental Services.

Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

There has been one face to face meeting between cross government officials and Healthcare Environmental Services held at the Cabinet Office. It is not appropriate to publish the minutes of that meeting. These were extremely sensitive discussions about managing a very difficult and pressing problem.

With respect to disclosure of correspondence, it would be entirely inappropriate to publish this for many reasons:

  • it would be prejudicial to commercial interests, not just of HES but other organisations involved in attempting to resolve the matter (e.g. the current contractor, Mitie)
  • it would be prejudicial to the efficient working of government, since some of it is in the sphere of policy formation
  • it includes sensitive information disclosed on a confidential basis by the Environmental Agency and other parties
  • it includes information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation into HES which it would clearly not be appropriate to disclose
  • there is also the potential for some of that information to be protected by legal privilege.

Written Question
Migrant Workers: EU Nationals
Thursday 13th December 2018

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent estimate he has made of the number of non-UK EU citizens working in health and social care in the UK.

Answered by Chloe Smith

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.


Written Question
Facebook: Advertising
Tuesday 11th December 2018

Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason the Facebook advertisement entitled The Brexit Deal explained does not appear in Facebook Ad Library as a political advertisement.

Answered by Chloe Smith

The format of the advert was a video and it started before Facebook's new transparency rules came into effect on the 29 November. The advert finished on the 30 November, while Facebook was still rolling out the ads library to advertisers across the UK, therefore it wasn't placed in the library.