Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how much funding his Department has (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on software updates to legacy computer systems in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The majority of FCDO IT is delivered through strategic commercial partners, as a managed service and it is not possible to breakdown the components that relate to support of legacy software. We continue to work with these suppliers to drive value for money in providing these services alongside ensuring we are aligning to advancements in technology.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not hold separate data on subscriptions. Many decisions are made by the UK's 281 embassies and diplomatic posts overseas or by individual departments in the UK. As a result, comprehensive information on individual titles is not centrally recorded and collating this information would incur disproportionate cost.
Efficiency savings are made on core titles by providing these centrally online as part of library services and by partnering with other Government Departments to obtain best value for money. These are reviewed annually. Over the last three financial years, the titles listed below have been supplied centrally through the FCDO Library.
The breadth of titles reflects the wide range of issues, events, and crises the FCDO's staff around the world need to keep track of to protect the UK's interests at home and overseas.
a] Newspapers
Bloomberg News; China Global South Project; The Daily Telegraph; The Economist; The Financial Times; Le Monde Diplomatique; The Local - Europe & Sweden (from 2022); The New York Times; Nikkei Asia; Politico Pro; PressReader (over 6,000 titles from 130 countries); South China Morning Post (from 2022); The Times & Sunday Times; The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
b] Magazines
The New Statesman (from 2023) and The Spectator. Other titles are also available via PressReader.
c] Online Journals
Africa Confidential; Africa Intelligence (from 2023); Africa Report (from 2023); African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review; American Economic Review; Annual Review of Economics; Arab Digest; British Medical Journal (to January 2022) Borderlex; Diplomat; Economic and Political Weekly; Elsevier/Science Direct (4,000 titles); European Council Studies (to December 2021); Intelligence Online (to September 2021); International Affairs; Jeune Afrique; Journal of Conflict Resolution; Journal of Democracy; Journal of Japanese Studies; Nature; Nature Climate Change; Nature Food (from 2023); Nature Geoscience (to January 2024); NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) Working Paper Series; NK News; Prospect; Quarterly Journal of Economics; Science; Taylor Francis Package (2,500 titles); Wiley Social Science & Humanities package (to January 2022); World Economics and World Politics; World Trade Online (to January 2022).
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMT’s expenditure on these areas is published as part of the departments on-going support of the transparency reporting programme. These can be viewed using the links below.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/gpc-spend
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/25000-spend
https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Some information is available for the Directorate of Defence Communications (DDC) as the lead branch for communications within the Ministry of Defence. The total DDC spend for online and hard copy Newspapers for the last financial year is £12,500. Further information cannot be provided as it cannot be separated out from other expenditure nor is it readily available for previous financial years.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
To answer for the whole department would incur disproportionate cost.
Newspapers and magazines that communications directorate and private office have subscribed to in the last three financial years are listed below.
a) Newspapers:
The Daily Express
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Telegraph
The Financial Times and FT.Com
The Guardian
The Sun
The Times
Sunday Times online
b) Magazines:
Campaign Magazine
Harvard Business Review
PR Week online
Private Eye
Spectator
The Economist
The New Statesman
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals her Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has paid for subscriptions to the following publications in the last three financial years:
- print editions of all national daily newspapers together with online editions of the Telegraph, Times and Financial Times;
- The New Statesman;
- The Spectator;
- Economist Nursing Times;
- Private Eye;
- The Voice;
- Health Service Journal;
- GP Online;
- Pulse;
- Health Policy Insight;
- New England Journal of Medicine;
- Journal of American Medicine;
- Nature;
- Bloomberg;
- PR Week; and
- I News.
The cost of the subscriptions totalled approximately £7,700 per year in financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22 and precisely £7718.08 in 2022/23.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
As part of the 2022 to 2025 Roadmap for Digital and Data, all departments made a commitment to reduce their digital and data vacancies to under 10 per cent of total Government Digital and Data headcount by 2025. This is to drive modernisation and digitisation in Government, improving public services for the British people and saving taxpayer money. Overall good progress has been made, with total vacancies now at 15 per cent.
FCDO reports biannually to Cabinet Office on our Digital and Data workforce as defined in the Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework. Our last return, in November 2023, had a vacancy rate of 15.7 per cent.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
As part of the 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, all departments made a commitment to reduce their digital and data vacancies to under 10% of total Government Digital and Data headcount by 2025
This is to drive modernisation and digitisation in Government, improving public services for the British people and saving taxpayer money
Overall good progress has been made, with total vacancies now at 15%
The Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework, defining the scope of the digital and data profession, outlines capability standards for roles and skills in the profession. It enables professionals, line managers and hiring managers to have a common understanding of roles and provides a strong foundation for recruitment
In our latest assessment in October 2023, we had 11 vacancies which is 13% of Digital roles in HM Treasury.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has 925 vacant posts aligned to digital roles which makes up 27.5% as the proportion of the total civilian digital workforce across Defence. Please note that these vacant posts may not be under any recruitment action at this time.
As part of the 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, all departments made a commitment to reduce their digital and data vacancies to under 10% of total Government Digital and Data headcount by 2025. MOD has adopted the Central Digital and Data Office Digital Data and Technology pay framework and introduced a new Digital Skills Allowance in September 2023 across the entire digital function. This is to enable improved attraction and retention in critical digital and cyber security roles. Recruitment using the Digital Skills Allowance is underway, with some early success in attracting external applicants to some Data and Software Development roles.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
There are 2691 digital roles within the departments’ digital function, of which 6% (160) are currently vacant.