Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the planned National School of Government and Public Services will enable universities and specialist providers to be commissioned directly, rather than through commercial prime contractors.

The Civil Service values its people, invests in their growth, and is serious about building the capability to meet the challenges of the future. This autumn the National School of Government and Public Services will formally open its doors to civil servant learners. The learning the school provides will boost public sector productivity and accelerate the pace of progress towards delivering the excellent, digitally-enabled public services to be expected from a modern state.

Many of the Civil Service’s training needs can be delivered in-house, by civil servants and the government is committed to reducing outsourced training contracts as we transition to an in-house delivery model through the new National School.

The National School will move away from the historical prime-contractor framework model. This new approach will create direct relationships with the learning and developing sector, including UK universities and university consortia. These relationships will be a combination of direct commercial relationships and new strategic relationships. Under this model, from April 2028 the School will have the ability to contract directly with universities and other academic partners to commission training and expertise directly, rather than through Prime Suppliers.

This sector will play a vital role across the School’s three core missions of teaching, research, and knowledge transfer; with an aim to provide civil servants with access to world-class training, evidence-based research on future policy challenges, and a pool of expert fellows to support evidence-based decision-making.

In the meantime, the School has also launched our College of Experts (CoE), a set of academic and external experts who can bring insight to and advise on all aspects of the School’s work on a needs basis. The CoE will also broaden the School’s evidence base, and strengthen knowledge exchange across government and academia.