Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average response time to subject access requests was by their Department in the latest period for which data is available; and if they will make an assessment of the adequacy of that response time.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The Department measures whether a subject access request (SAR) received did or did not receive a response within the legal deadline. It is, therefore, not possible to report on actual clearance time averages. The legal deadline is within one calendar month, or three months if deemed complex. For quarter one, 2023/24 performance for completion within timeframe was 99%.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to ensure that staff in her Department who are under investigation for alleged misconduct are not named before those allegations are proven.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The Department's policies follow the Civil Service Human Resources' wider model discipline policy. This makes clear that disciplinary matters are strictly confidential. This sits alongside a separate Whistleblowing/Raising a Concern Policy in line with the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) non-disclosure and (b) other confidentiality agreements relating to (i) employment, (ii) bullying, (iii) misconduct and (iii) harassment cases have been agreed by their Department in each year since 1 January 2010; and how much money from the public purse has been spent on (A) legal costs and (B) financial settlements for such agreements in each year since 1 January 2010.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The Department has not used non-disclosure or other confidentiality agreements with current or former employees from 2014 onwards.

The Government is clear that confidentiality clauses should not be used to prevent staff from raising or discussing allegations of bullying, harassment, or discrimination.

The Department did enter into some such agreements between 2010 and 2013. The table below shows the number of such agreements and the financial settlements agreed in each financial year.

The Department does not hold information on the legal costs during that period.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken in the last six months to ensure statistical information scheduled to be released by the Department is published on the Department's website in a timely and effective way.

Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

The department is committed to the transparent release of statistics, publishing in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. Public releases by the department are made in line with its scheduled release calendar and publication dates are pre-announced via the GOV.UK portal for transparency.

Decisions on timing are made by our Chief Statistician who works closely with statistics producers, relevant parties, and the Office for Statistics Regulation to ensure the availability of our data in the public interest. The accurate publication of statistics requires appropriate preparation and quality assessment, and decisions on timescales must account for the time required for these processes to take place reliably.

To support the timely publication of statistics, the department has an ongoing programme of work to improve the efficiency of our statistics publication processes, whilst simultaneously working to enhance reliability and accessibility.

As part of this programme of work, the department have built (and continue to develop in an agile way) the ‘Explore Education Statistics’ platform. The department have worked closely with users to provide a system that meets accessibility and usability requirements as effectively as possible, whilst helping our statistics producers create publications in a more efficient and timely way. This platform can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has issued any non-disclosure agreements to third-party contractors since February 2020.

Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

The department has not issued any non-disclosure agreements to contractors recruited as contingent labour workers.

The contract for a ‘third-party contractor’ sits between the worker and the supplier, Public Sector Resourcing, not with the Department for Education.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish any internal guidance available on the use of non-disclosure agreements at his Department.

Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

The department follows the Civil Service policy which states that non-disclosure clauses should only be used when necessary and should not be included in settlement agreements as a matter of course. Non-disclosure agreements should not seek to stifle or discourage staff from raising concerns about wrongdoing or poor practice in the department or to prevent the proper disclosure of matters of public interest, and do not affect the protection provided to employees under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. The department does not use non-disclosure agreements with its employees.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the prevalence of the use of non-disclosure agreements in his Department.

Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

The Department for Education does not use non-disclosure agreements with its employees.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many non-disclosure agreements have been issued by his Department since February 2020.

Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

The department has entered into no non-disclosure agreements since February 2020. The department does not use non-disclosure agreements with its employees.