Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 13
Ninth Report - Civil Service People Survey
Published 24 Oct 2023
Paragraph 55
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)
Empowering departments, organisations and individual teams to respond to issues raised in the People Survey is in many cases a sensible approach. They will be best placed to respond to local issues and specific challenges. But other issues require a coordinating hand. Some of the questions asked in the People Survey concern matters - such as pay and benefits - over which individual departments and organisations have a limited capacity to respond, and these must be addressed at the system-level across the whole of the Civil Service. The Cabinet Office, as the body responsible for the conduct of the People Survey, also bears responsibility for evaluating its impact - not least to inform discussions about the future of the survey.
From: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Ninth Report - Civil Service People Survey (HC 575), paragraph 55, 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.