Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 2
Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 27
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Planning for the future of the Government’s estates All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Publishing details of the rationale and success criteria for a major programme is essential for public transparency and assisting parliamentary scrutiny. This is not only a democratic good in itself; by exposing the justifications for their interventions to scrutiny, departments can hope to strengthen the design of their policies and gain greater public confidence in their decisions. In future, whenever the Cabinet Office launches a named programme, it should publish a prospectus document in advance of its operation, setting out details including the programme’s rationale, key objectives, and evaluation plan. It should additionally maintain a dedicated webpage on GOV. UK, on which it periodically publishes updated metrics of progress, as well as other corporate announcements related to the programme. Retrospectively, the Cabinet Office should, alongside the response to this report, publish this information, both for Places for Growth and for its Plan for London, on a dedicated GOV.UK webpage, and commit to updating it with metrics of progress at regular intervals, at least annually. In publishing this information, the Cabinet Office should clearly show how Places for Growth and the Plan for London fit together.
From: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates (HC 793), paragraph 27, 27 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 October 2023.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it supports enhanced transparency and has "accepted recommendations where appropriate", while pointing to existing mechanisms on others and leaving some decisions with individual departments.
- On programme documentation, the Government says it "will publish relevant programme documentation" for Places for Growth and the Plan for London, and "will refresh the appropriate pages" to include purpose, objectives and critical success factors.
- On Cabinet meetings outside London, it states that planning must balance regional benefits with ministerial parliamentary availability and taxpayers' money, and that "for security reasons" it does not announce when and where meetings will take place.
- On civil service headcount, it says the policy of reducing numbers by 91,000 FTE "would not be pursued" and that any reductions are "for individual departments to determine".
- On the Government Property Agency's value for money, it states the Agency delivers "excellent value for money" and is undertaking a benefits review against its original business case, with no external review commitment stated.