Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, updated on 29 February 2024, when his Department first assessed each of the red-rated legacy IT systems in his Department to be red-rated.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Cabinet Office Digital first carried out an audit between September 2022 and Feb 2023, as part of the work to upgrade our IT estate.
It has created a framework for managing legacy systems in the department and we are proactively working with the Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO), reporting and feeding back updates on progress.
The Cabinet Office aims to have remediation plans in place for these systems next year.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the policy paper entitled Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data, updated on 29 February 2024, what steps his Department has taken to mitigate the risks of red-rated legacy IT systems.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), in the Cabinet Office, has established a programme to support departments managing legacy IT. CDDO has agreed a framework to identify ‘red-rated’ systems, indicating high levels of risk surrounding certain assets within the IT estate. Departments have committed to have remediation plans in place for these systems by next year (2025).
It is not appropriate to release sensitive information held about specific red-rated systems, more detailed plans for remediation within departmental IT estates, or information that could indicate which systems are at risk as it may highlight potential security vulnerabilities.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the total cost to the public purse was of legal (a) support and (b) representation to Ministers in his Department in relation to their official conduct in each of the last three years.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Such information is not centrally recorded or collated in the form requested. More generally, I would refer the hon. Member to the long-standing policies on legal expenditure, as set out recently by Cabinet Office Ministers on 12 March 2024, Official Report, PQ 17709 and 12 March 2024, Official Report, House of Lords, Cols. 1901-1904
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, to which domestic destinations Ministers in his Department have attended overnight visits in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Rt Hon. Member to my response to UIN 17515 on 12th March 2024.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many domestic overnight visits were undertaken by Ministers in his Department in each of the last three financial years; and what the cost of those visits was.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government publishes on GOV.UK details of the cost of overseas Ministerial travel, including costs of travel, and on other costs (visas, accommodation, meals).
But as has been the case under successive administrations, the Government does not publish granular detail on Ministers’ travel at home or abroad.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what guidance his Department issues on the use of WhatsApp.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
In common with all other departments in central government, and arms lengths bodies, Cabinet Office applies the published guidance: Using Non-Corporate Communication Channels (e.g. WhatsApp, private email, SMS, etc.) for Government Business, found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-corporate-communication-channels-for-government-business. This guidance, which was published by Cabinet Office in March 2023, applies to all individuals in central government (ministers, special advisers, officials, contractors, non-executive board members and independent experts advising ministers).
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the amount of money lost to fraud and error by his Department in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government is proud of its record in proactively seeking to find and prevent more fraud in the system. As part of wider cross-government counter fraud investment, the government established the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). In its first year, the PSFA delivered £311 million in audited counter fraud benefits.
The PSFA produces a Fraud Landscape Report (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cross-government-fraud-landscape-annual-report-2022). This provides data on fraud and error detection, loss and recoveries in central government, outside of the tax and welfare system and includes the Cabinet Office. The 2020/21 Report was published in March 2023. To note it outlines all figures rounded to the nearest £0.1m.
In 2022-23, as published in the department’s Annual Reports and Accounts, the Cabinet Office detected error of £3.48m, of which £3.43m was recovered in year and detected fraud of £60k of which none has been recovered to date. Efforts to recover the detected fraud are continuing at this time. The Cabinet Office does not hold specific data on fraud for previous years.
The Cabinet Office does not recognise a loss arising from error or fraud until efforts to recover the funds have been explored. This means that write-offs of error and fraud usually occur in the years after the original problem arose.
Losses recognised and written off by the Cabinet Office for the last three years are:
2022/23 - £4,800
2021/22 - £327,400
2020/21 - £703,300
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what reports and guidance his Department and has produced in the last three years; and how much was spent on their (a) printing and (b) distribution.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department. Reports and guidance that the Department has published can be found on gov.uk. Examples include the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/cabinet-office-annual-reports-and-accounts), Strengthening Ethics and Integrity in Central Government (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/strengthening-ethics-and-integrity-in-central-government) and policy papers such as the Disability Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/disability-action-plan).
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much funding his Department (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on advertising in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office spent the following on advertising in the last three financial years:
20/21: £376,029,723.21
21/22: £168,730,321.96
22/23: £27,485,611.31
Detail on this and other spending is routinely published by the Cabinet Office on GOV.UK here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/cabinet-office-spend-data
Advertising spend in 20/21 and 21/22 was considerably higher due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Cabinet Office played a leading role in providing the public with information about the Pandemic. Increased advertising was essential to doing this and keeping the country safe.
The Cabinet Office budgets for advertising and other public relations activity is set in order to provide flexibility to the Cabinet Office to deal appropriately with what are often unforeseen events. This has been a long standing budgetary good practice under successive administrations.
The overall budget for Marketing and Media for the years in question are set out below:
20/21: £558,297,000
21/22: £242,177,000
22/23: £39,501,000
Work on advertising is primarily carried out by communications staff employed by departments and like all areas of government spending, costs are reviewed regularly to ensure value for money.
Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of digital posts in his Department were vacant on 26 February 2024.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As at 31 January 2024, approximately 11.2% of Digital roles were vacant across the Cabinet Office and were either in an active or planned recruitment stage, showing we are making good progress towards reaching the 10% target by 2025 set by the 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data. The majority of these roles sit within Cabinet Office Digital, Government Digital Service and Central Digital and Data Office.
We set this target 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 across the Civil Service now at 15%.
In order to improve recruitment success and fill existing vacancies CDDO has:
recently launched its Government Digital and Data Civil Service Careers (https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/professions/working-in-digital-data-and-technology/) webpage to attract new talent to the Civil Service. The webpage showcases secondment opportunities, talent programmes and digital and data jobs available in departments.
developed a digital and data pay framework that enables departments to pay more competitive market rates to attract specialist digital and data skills. Participating departments can fund higher civil service pay allowances from savings flowing from reducing their contingent labour headcount.