Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Government’s objective of delivering “the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation”, which specific previous wave of insourcing the Government is using as a comparator, and what assessment it has made of the timing and scale of that wave.

The Government’s policy of delivering the highest wave of insourcing in a generation reflects a clear commitment in Labour’s ‘Make Work Pay’ agenda and will see an end to the previous administration’s policy of outsourcing by default.

Central to this is the introduction of a Public Insourcing Test, as announced on 26 March, which will see all Government departments assess if services can be better delivered in-house. Alongside this, departments will produce and publish robust insourcing strategies.

Detailed guidance will be published in the updated Sourcing Playbook this summer, and my officials have been engaging across Government to ensure the implementation of both the Public Interest Test and insourcing strategies can commence rapidly.