Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants have been (a) disciplined, (b) subject to criminal charges, and (c) dismissed for offences under the Official Secrets Act 1989 in each of the last five years.

All breaches of information are taken seriously and recorded by each individual department. The Civil Service Management Code (4.2.1) states ‘Departments and agencies must remind staff on appointment, retirement or resignation that they are bound by the provisions of the criminal law, including the Official Secrets Acts, which protect certain categories of official information, and by their duty of confidentiality owed to the Crown as their former employer’.

Where a law has been broken or potentially broken, it is reported to the police and they would take forward any investigation. Subsequent actions would be a matter for the police and the courts.

Other than in exceptional cases, when it is in the public interest, it has been the policy of successive governments not to comment on breaches of security.