Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Rejected
Paragraph: 45
People Survey is an invaluable and unique barometer for Civil Service sentiment and scrutiny.
Conclusion
When first established, the People Survey was envisioned as a management tool to support public bodies in gauging and promoting employee engagement. But the high-quality data it has generated - a result of excellent work by government statisticians, particularly in the early years of the survey - has proven itself to be invaluable in many more contexts. The People Survey is a unique barometer of how those involved in the day-to-day running of government and the delivery of public services feel about their work, and is an important tool for many in Parliament and academia, who seek to scrutinise the work of the Civil Service, not to mention trade unions, who represent those taking part in the exercise.
Government response summary AI-generated
The Cabinet Office does not accept the committee's conclusion regarding the People Survey's broader value for scrutiny, reiterating that it is primarily a management tool. It commits to publishing a commentary and reducing timing between internal and external distribution of findings.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
45
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government · verbatim extract
Rejected
Recommendation: The People Survey is a dataset of significant public interest. In future, the People Survey results should be treated and classified as official statistics and be published in full compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Cabinet Office should formally request the assessment of the People Survey against the Code of Practice as soon as possible and - as part of this work - liaise with the Office for Statistics Regulation for further information on how to apply the Code while protecting the ability of participating organisations to access and use results in a timely fashion. In its response to this report, the Cabinet Office should update the Committee on its progress with this process. (Paragraph 46) The Cabinet Office does not accept this recommendation. The Civil Service People Survey is primarily a management tool aiming to support UK government departments and agencies to embed and improve employee engagement with their organisations. The Survey is also an effective mechanism for internal and external accountability that provides invaluable insight to help measure progress against the aims and outcomes of major cross Civil Service policy initiatives. Currently, the People Survey looks to match a number of the approaches set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics given the wide interest in the annual results, including those relating to quality assurance and to providing technical guidance to users. This helps to show our commitment to producing outputs that are respected for their high quality and which inform decision making. We commit to publishing a commentary of the main high-level findings and reducing the timing between internal and external distribution of the findings. Responding to Results
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