Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Change NHS online portal, what the total cost to the public purse is of contracts issued to (a) Thinks Insight & Strategy, (b) Kaleidoscope Health and Care and (c) The Institute for Public Policy Research to run the public engagement programme; and if he will publish all (i) contracts, (ii) work programmes and (iii) terms of reference connected to the procurement process.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The awarded value of this contract was up to £2,961,595.50. The publication of the details of this award and the redacted contract can be found on contracts finder, with the contract number C306779.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is using (a) artificial intelligence and (b) a third-party organisation to assess responses to the consultation entitled Change NHS: A health service fit for the future, published on 21 October 2024.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department has commissioned an external supplier, Thinks Insight and Strategy, to help run the engagement for the 10-Year Health Plan for England. The portal is hosted via the online platform Go Vocal, who are a contracted supplier of Thinks Insight and Strategy. Go Vocal use a natural language processing tool to moderate content on the platform, in addition to Thinks Insight and Strategy running manual checks.

Yonder Data Solutions will be responsible for thematically analysing and coding anonymised responses to the online portal. Yonder Data Solutions are a contracted supplier of Thinks Insight and Strategy. Anonymised data will be analysed using a mixture of human and artificial intelligence coding, with manual quality checks carried out.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what role (a) Ministers, (b) special advisers and (c) Departmental officials had in the awarding of contracts to the organisations running the Change NHS: A health service fit for the future public engagement campaign.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The evaluation panel for the tender consisted of four people. Three from within the Department’s policy teams, and one from NHS England. No ministers or special advisers were part of the final award decision.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what contracts his Department have awarded to the Institute for Public Policy Research since 4 July 2024.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department has not awarded any contracts to the Institute for Public Policy Research since 4 July 2024.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to Annex D of FOI2024-00289: Correspondence about the appointment of Emily Middleton, published by his Department on 24 September 2024, if he will publish (a) the letter from Cat Little and (b) accompanying annex on routes into Government.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

I am happy to publish the accompanying annex (b), which was a document entitled "CSC Recruitment Principles". This is available online at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/02a_RECRUITMENT-PRINCIPLES-April-2018-FINAL-.pdf

As this is a letter written in a professional capacity from one senior official to others, I do not intend to publish the full text.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the total budget is for the Change NHS: A health service fit for the future public engagement campaign; and what time period this funding will cover.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The awarded value of this contract was up to £2,961,595.50. The publication of the details of this award and the redacted contract can be found on contracts finder, with contract number C306779. The current contract start date is 13 September 2024, with an end date of 31 March 2025, and an option to extend by three months.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the procurement process was to award contracts for the Change NHS online portal.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

A procurement mini competition was launched via the RM6126 CCS Research and Insights framework on 2 August 2024, with bids returned by 19 August 2024.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 October 2024 to Question 10785 on Department of Health and Social Care: Institute for Public Policy Research, whether NHS England has awarded any contracts to the IPPR since the general election.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England has not awarded any contracts to the Institute for Public Policy Research since 4 July 2024.

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Found: Negatived on division _6 Claire Coutinho Andrew Bowie Joy Morrissey Mark Garnier Saqib Bhatti