Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many officials in the Senior Civil Service were employed on a full-time equivalent basis in each of the last five years.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Information on the number of civil servants working at SCS level employed on a full-time equivalent basis is published annually by Cabinet Office as part of the accredited official statistics publication ‘Civil Service Statistics’. Data as at 31 March each year for the years 2021 to 2025 can be accessed through the ‘Civil Service Statistics data browser’ for each of these five years using the links below:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants were employed in each Government department as of 1 January 2026.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Information on the number of civil servants employed in each Government department are published quarterly by Office for National Statistics (ONS) with a one quarter lag as part of their accredited official statistics publication ‘Public Sector Employment’. Latest data as at end September 2025 can be accessed using the web link below.
Information on Civil Service employment as at end December 2025 is scheduled for publication by ONS as part of these statistics on 19 March 2025.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many Freedom of Information requests were received by central Government departments in each of the last three years.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Freedom of Information statistics for all central government departments and other monitored bodies are published on a quarterly and annual basis on Gov.UK at www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to (a) rationalise, (b) co-locate and (c) better utilise buildings across the wider public sector.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Government Property Strategy is driving a shift towards a smaller, better, and greener public estate. Significant progress has been made in consolidating the public estate. By disposing of unneeded assets, the Government has generated over £2 billion in capital receipts since 2022.
Programmes like One Public Estate are successfully unlocking potential across England by enabling co-location, releasing land for housing, and improving local public services. Since 2013, this work has helped transform places, supporting the release of land for over 54,000 homes, the creation of over 93,000 jobs, and delivering £211 million in running cost savings. Programmes to improve estate efficiency also operate in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, under the direction of the devolved administrations.
Co-location is also a key feature of the Government office estate, with multi-department hubs now operating across the UK. This initiative, alongside the Places for Growth drive to move roles to cities and regions, has allowed the Government - through the Plan for London - to commit to leaving 11 expensive London locations, saving taxpayers £94 million by 2032. Beyond the office estate, OPE also facilitates co-location of services, for example the Middlesborough Live Well hub which brings together public health services with employment, education, housing and welfare support.
The Government Property Strategy also focuses on ensuring the efficient use of the wider public estate. Full details on the performance and utilisation of the estate are presented to the House annually in the State of the Estate report.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to launch the Contingent Decision route for the Civil Service Partnership Pension scheme.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
A launch date for the Partnership Contingent Decision route cannot be confirmed at this time. The Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) launched the Contingent Decision process for members who opted out of the scheme in July 2025. However, the process for members who switched to the Partnership pension scheme involves additional complexity, requiring the reconciliation of contributions between defined contribution and defined benefit arrangements.
The administration of this work will now be picked up by Capita who took over the CSPS contract on 1 December. Planning work has started to define the process and timeline.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking reduce the level of unused floorspace in civil service buildings.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Government Property Agency (GPA) is addressing unused floorspace by strategically reducing the overall size of the estate through consolidation and lease management, while simultaneously optimising the use of remaining space by adopting Smarter Working principles and leveraging technology for better utilisation.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to ensure that companies involved in major (a) governance and (b) accountability failures are subject to enhanced scrutiny before providing critical public services.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Government efficiency, transparency and accountability are key pillars of the Procurement Act 2023 which came into force this year. The Act establishes a new exclusions framework that makes it easier to exclude suppliers who have underperformed in the delivery of other public contracts or acted improperly in procurement. The Act has also created a debarment list which will publicly list suppliers who must or may be excluded from contracts.
The new Central Digital Platform is also improving accessibility to procurement data, ensuring accountability and enabling the public and stakeholders to scrutinise spending decisions and track procurement outcomes.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many jobs have been lost due to high street shop closures in the last 12 months for which data is available.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 14th July is attached.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, ow many cars have been reported as stolen in the last 12 months for which data is available.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 14th July is attached.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of job applications to the civil service in the last 12 months.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The number of vacancies advertised via the Civil Service (CS) Jobs website has decreased over the past full financial year and applications received via CS Jobs have increased.