Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which minister in their Department is responsible for overseeing work on long term strategic challenges; and how many officials work in roles focused on horizon scanning and long term priorities.

As Chair of the Departmental Board, the Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing work on long-term strategic challenges. The Chair is responsible for ensuring the Board – comprising of the Ministerial Team, the Executive Team and senior non-executive members from outside of government – gives sufficient attention to horizon scanning for emerging issues, monitoring performance and overseeing the management of risks.

The Department’s Outcome Delivery Plan sets out how we plan to deliver outcomes for customers in the short term – responding at pace to emerging risks – and the long term regardless of current events. The priorities set out in the Plan include maximising employment and in-work progression, improving people’s quality of life and delivering excellent services for citizens and taxpayers.

Horizon scanning and upholding long-term priorities is a core aspect of all policymaking and planning undertaken across the Department. Therefore, specifying which officials work in roles focused on the short or long term is prohibitively complex and expensive, and it is not possible to answer this aspect of the question.