Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) effect, (b) uptake and (c) observance of Government non-statutory guidance in the IT, technology and digital sector by industry, civil society and others.

The Government Digital Service has lead responsibility for digital and technology guidance and standards in central Government, through the Digital by Default Service Standard, Government Service Design Manual and Technology Code of Practice. All Government departments are required to follow the standards and guidance when developing new IT and digital solutions. All standards and guidance are fully open and other organisations are welcome to follow the good practice set out in these documents.

Although my department makes no formal assessment of the uptake of these standards and guidance beyond central government, we assure that central government meets these standards through spending controls and service assessments and via the monitoring of service performance on GOV.UK to assure that high quality services are delivered to users.