Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether her Department has made an estimate of the annual saving to small and medium-sized enterprises if public bodies accepted Cyber Essentials Plus certification in place of bespoke supplier security questionnaires for contracts below the goods and services threshold in Schedule 1 to the Procurement Act 2023.
Answered by Mark Ferguson - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Contracting authorities in central government must ensure that effective and proportionate cyber security controls are applied to mitigate supply chain risks. In contracts with certain key characteristics considered to be at a higher risk of cyber security threats, the Cyber Essentials schemes, or equivalent, should be used as set out in Procurement Policy Note 014.
Cyber Essentials is a government backed scheme to help businesses of any size protect themselves against a range of the most common cyber attacks and to demonstrate their commitment to cyber security.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether her Department has made an estimate of the effect on gross domestic product of standardising supplier assurance requirements across public sector buyers for contracts below the central government goods and services threshold.
Answered by Mark Ferguson - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Contracting authorities undertaking a below-threshold procurement have greater flexibility in designing and running a procurement and awarding and managing the resulting contract. This flexibility might include, for example, the ability to choose to restrict the award of contracts to suppliers who are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSEs).
Supplier assurance requirements for below threshold procurements are determined by the Contracting Authority, must not include a pre-qualification stage and must be proportionate.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether her Department has made an estimate of the annual cost to business of completing separate security assurance questionnaires for different public sector buyers.
Answered by Mark Ferguson - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Contracting authorities in central government must ensure that effective and proportionate security assurance measures are deployed in procurements, to mitigate supply chain risks. The type and levels of security assurance required will depend on the nature and risk of the contract.
The Central Digital Platform introduced a 'tell us once' functionality for baseline supplier information to streamline and simplify the bidding process.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate the Cabinet Office has made of the average cost to businesses of preparing social value responses when bidding for central government contracts under the Social Value Model set out in Procurement Policy Note 002.
Answered by Mark Ferguson - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office regularly engages with suppliers and industry bodies to seek their feedback on potential burdens when developing procurement policy.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many directors with responsibility for human resources are employed across their Department and its executive agencies; and how many of those directors hold professional HR qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development or equivalent professional bodies.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Please find the information requested below:
Number of Directors with responsibility for human resources (HR) | Number of Directors delivering non-HR technical activity e.g. Shared Services | Number of Directors with CIPD membership |
6 | The numbers concerned would relate to five individuals or fewer. We therefore cannot provide details in such cases as the individuals concerned could be identifiable. This is standard statistical reporting. | 6 |
The information included in this response also includes those directors working in Government People Group, which is the strategic and functional centre for the cross Government People Function and human resources (HR) for the whole Civil Service.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many directors with responsibility for human resources are employed across government departments and their executive agencies; and how many of those directors hold professional HR qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and equivalent professional bodies.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We are unable to answer this question as this data is not centrally held by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps is the Government taking to review public sector cloud services procurement practices in light of the Competition and Markets Authority's finding that Microsoft and AWS hold approximately 70% market share between them; and will the Government publish guidance on competitive tendering to ensure value for money.
Answered by Chris Ward
Further to the Competition and Markets Authority findings, the Crown Commercial Service, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Cabinet Office are exploring measures to strengthen value for money and promote supplier diversification.
Procurement guidance is kept under regular review, and we will consider issuing further guidance as needed to support value for money.