Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 4
Ninth Report - Civil Service People Survey
Published 24 Oct 2023
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Civil Service People Survey All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
To maximise the quality of information available on the experiences and performance of the UK Civil Service, the Cabinet Office - in partnership with participating organisations - should continue to develop the broader evidence base. The broad annual snapshots provided by the People Survey should be supplemented with more frequent, timely, and targeted ‘pulse’ surveys, as well as the administrative data already being collected by participating organisations on absence, recruitment, and performance. The Cabinet Office should report publicly on its plans to improve the data available to decision-makers on the experiences and performance of civil servants by the end of
From: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Ninth Report - Civil Service People Survey (HC 575), 24 October 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 January 2024 (deadline 18 January 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Cabinet Office accepts several of the Committee's recommendations on the Civil Service People Survey, but does not accept those on earlier publication of initial results or on classifying the survey as official statistics.
- On engagement with users, it "accepts this recommendation" and will consider wider engagement of external stakeholders, with a list of consultees to be included in future technical guides on GOV.UK.
- On the Employee Engagement Index, it accepts the recommendation and will "explore the content and usefulness" of the Index, planning changes over the next two years towards a new version of the Survey in 2025.
- It does not accept the recommendations on publishing results when distributed to participants or on treating the survey as official statistics, describing it as "primarily a management tool". It commits to publishing a commentary and reducing the time between internal and external distribution.
- On action plans, the Government "disagrees with the overall statement that effective action is not taken" from the Survey, recognises the benefits of action plans, and accepts the recommendation to enhance support, while balancing central guidance with departmental autonomy.