Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 33
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)
The Government has made high-profile commitments that Ministers would spend significant working time in regional offices—though without clearly explaining what value this was meant to deliver. To date, Ministers have not been able to meet this commitment, making flying visits rather than basing themselves outside London for significant amounts of time to conduct substantive work. The responsible Minister himself suggested a good reason for this: ministerial work is closely linked to Parliament and the Cabinet, and long travel times make it impractical for Ministers to spend very significant working time away from Westminster. The Government should either live up to its public commitment for Ministers to spend more time working outside the capital, or issue a revised ambition with an accurate statement of what Ministers can actually commit to. This should extend to the Government’s purpose in building Cabinet meeting rooms in two of its new Hubs, and the Cabinet Office should include in its response to this report details of when the Cabinet plans to meet in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
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 33, 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.