UK Inquiry Tracker

Specialist skills in the civil service

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 16 Sep 2020 Closed: 25 Mar 2021 Parliament page

In the midst of a series of major challenges to Government in developing responses to Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the UK’s 2050 net-zero carbon target, the Committee is launching an inquiry on progress in developing specialist skills across the civil service. Civil service skills and capabilities were thrown into … Read more In the midst of a series of major challenges to Government in developing responses to Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the UK’s 2050 net-zero carbon target, the Committee is launching an inquiry on progress in developing specialist skills across the civil service. Civil service skills and capabilities were thrown into focus in recent years as the UK built towards its departure from the European Union - a focus greatly sharpened as we adapt to a global pandemic emergency. The Committee continues to scrutinise aspects of the Government’s response to Covid-19 and the civil service’s capacity and capability to respond to a range of challenges. Government supports the development of specialist skills through cross-government functions, which develop and deliver expertise to government departments. This inquiry will focus on the NAO’s report on the Cabinet Office’s progress across four of those functions in particular: Commercial, Digital, Finance and Project Delivery, including the Cabinet Office’s oversight of the functions; progress in developing specialist skills within the functions; and areas where the functions need to develop further. The NAO finds that the Cabinet Office now sets clear expectations for the performance of functions and requires regular reporting on their costs and benefits. Functions have also become more established as the means for advancing specialist skills and expertise across government. However, the functional model to fully succeed, departments need to consistently embed that functional expertise in their business planning, and Government could exploit functions more effectively to support cross‑government working. In addition, to support recruitment and retention HM Treasury now allows functions and departments to exercise some pay flexibility – but this can lead to workforce management issues. In mid-October we will question senior Cabinet Office and Treasury officials on the latest picture on specialist skills and capabilities in the civil service. If you have evidence on the issues raised in this inquiry please submit them here by Thursday 8 October. Show less

6 Recommendations

14 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

1 Event

Activity timeline 3 events

24 Mar
2021

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Thirty second report from Session 2019-21

11 Dec
2020

Report published

Thirty-second Report - Specialist Skills in the civil service

2 Nov
2020

Oral evidence

Specialist skills in the Civil Service

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

2 Nov 2020

View on parliament.uk

Specialist skills in the Civil Service

Alex Chisholm · Cabinet Office Cat Little · Cabinet Office Rupert McNeil · Cabinet Office

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Thirty-second Report - Specialist Skills in the civil service	HC 686	11 Dec 2020	20	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

12 results

2 Recommendation Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The civil service struggles to attract and retain specialist staff.

The civil service struggles to attract and retain specialist staff. Since 2010 the civil service has been subject to pay restrictions, which have limited its ability to offer progressive pay packages to staff. Areas such as Digital and Commercial have … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the recommendation but outlines existing mechanisms, such as annual reviews of SCS pay and exceptions, promotion of Pivotal Role Allowances, and sharing allowance data to encourage pay coherence, rather than committing to a new review of these processes.

HM Treasury

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3 Recommendation Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

There is still a long way to go to ensure the civil service retains and...

There is still a long way to go to ensure the civil service retains and promotes those from different backgrounds. The more diverse an organisation, the better decisions it makes. The civil service has made a commitment to be more … Read more

Government Response

The government accepts the recommendation, committing to continue publishing detailed diversity statistics, developing a new Civil Service Inclusion strategy, and launching the Government Recruitment Information Database (GRID) by April 2022 to improve data-driven decision making and recruitment diversity.

HM Treasury

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4 Recommendation Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

Departmental data is not good enough to support functions’ development of comprehensive workforce plans.

Departmental data is not good enough to support functions’ development of comprehensive workforce plans. The Cabinet Office acknowledges it does not have the data it needs across all functions to accurately assess what skills the civil service has and where … Read more

Government Response

The government accepts the recommendation and is taking steps to improve annual workforce projections, align data standards across functions, improve consistency and transparency of workforce data through process convergence, and collect more effective functional data via the ACSES for 2021.

HM Treasury

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7 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office recognised that rules introduced in 2010 on civil service pay make it...

The Cabinet Office recognised that rules introduced in 2010 on civil service pay make it difficult to attract and retain skilled specialists in some areas.15 Some skills, such as the ability to lead large projects, are particularly scarce. The Cabinet … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the Committee's observation regarding challenges in attracting and retaining specialists due to civil service pay rules, outlining existing measures such as departmental pay delegation, pay exception processes, SCS pay reviews via the SSRB, and the use of Pivotal Role Allowances.

HM Treasury

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9 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

Pay flexibilities can however lead to disparities in specialist pay, which can create an internal...

Pay flexibilities can however lead to disparities in specialist pay, which can create an internal market between departments for those with specialist skills. To tackle this, the Cabinet Office explained how it is managing the issue. For senior civil service … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the observation and confirms it is already implementing measures, such as annual reviews of SCS pay and exceptions, and promoting Pivotal Role Allowances, with the next SCS pay exception review due in Summer 2021.

HM Treasury

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10 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The more diverse the people in an organisation, the better run it is and the...

The more diverse the people in an organisation, the better run it is and the better decisions it makes. As part of the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy the civil service has committed to setting and working towards targets … Read more

Government Response

The government is developing a new Civil Service Inclusion strategy to replace the 2017-2020 strategy, focusing on talent, fairness, and a broader view of diversity, with individual functions like Finance also launching their own diversity strategies.

HM Treasury

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11 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office also recognised the importance of retention.

The Cabinet Office also recognised the importance of retention. One of its key aims is to look at how people progress within the civil service once they are in post. The Cabinet Office acknowledged it can take three to five … Read more

Government Response

The government outlined its existing policies and frameworks for pay and retention, confirming that pay matters for grades below SCS are delegated to departments, and detailing how SCS pay, pivotal role allowances, pay exceptions, and specialist pay frameworks like DDAT are managed across the Civil Service.

HM Treasury

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12 Recommendation Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

Ideally, all functions would have access to workforce statistics from a consistent civil service-wide data...

Ideally, all functions would have access to workforce statistics from a consistent civil service-wide data set. However, functions are still largely reliant on departmental data on staffing, which is variable in quality and is not always detailed enough for functions … Read more

Government Response

The government accepted the recommendation, agreeing to work towards a consistent Civil Service-wide dataset by May 2021. It is already improving annual workforce projections, aligning data standards across functions, and working to improve the consistency and transparency of workforce data and ACSES returns.

HM Treasury

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13 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office is looking to put in place measures that will allow it to...

The Cabinet Office is looking to put in place measures that will allow it to identify what skills an individual has so that they can be best deployed to maximise impact. The Cabinet Office noted that the Project Delivery function … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the committee's observation, detailing ongoing steps to improve annual workforce projections, align data standards across functions, enhance workforce data consistency, and improve functional data collection via the ACSES for 2021.

HM Treasury

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14 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office told us that the challenge of EU exit and EU transition, alongside...

The Cabinet Office told us that the challenge of EU exit and EU transition, alongside the concurrent risk of the covid-19 pandemic, has sharpened its thinking about skills and has improved the effectiveness of strategic workforce planning across the civil … Read more

Government Response

The Cabinet Office is committed to addressing skills gaps and enhancing strategic workforce planning across the Civil Service by May 2021, having already established the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit and improved annual workforce projections.

HM Treasury

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18 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office’s ‘blueprint’ exercise in 2018 set consistent expectations for functions and introduced more...

The Cabinet Office’s ‘blueprint’ exercise in 2018 set consistent expectations for functions and introduced more regularised reporting from functions on their performance, costs and benefits.32 The National Audit Office noted that data quality would be central to the success of … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees that data on impacts is poor and is taking specific steps, including a project that identified four key factors for assessing functional improvement and a widespread agenda of culture-change to ensure Green Book guidance on measuring costs and benefits is followed.

HM Treasury

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20 Conclusion Accepted

Thirty-second Report - Specialist …

The Cabinet Office told us that the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) is in the...

The Cabinet Office told us that the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) is in the process of developing a new project to allow comparison of impact assessments across the functions. As part of this, the GIAA has developed a standardised … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees with the Committee's conclusion, stating a target implementation date of April 2021 for the project to measure the impact of government functions using four key factors, and outlines details of this work.

HM Treasury

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Government Response AI assessment · 20 of 6 classified

Accepted 12

Acknowledged 3

Not Addressed 2

Rejected 3

Total 6 recs + 14 conclusions