Civil Service Relocation

My hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour is absolutely right to raise the importance of having a civil service presence around the country. He will know the importance of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government presence in Wolverhampton to the local area. We want to see half of our UK-based senior civil servants located outside London by 2030. We recently announced plans to relocate thousands of civil service roles to towns and cities across the whole UK.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. I do indeed feel blessed to have the dual head- quarters of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which employs more than 250 people, right next to my constituency office in Wolverhampton West. I welcome the Government’s plans to move civil servant roles out of London into communities such as mine. Will my right hon. Friend please set out how these roles will work closely with businesses, the City of Wolverhampton council and communities in my constituency, as well as help my constituents to pursue careers as civil servants?

My hon. Friend raises some good points. We do not just want to see buildings with no connection to the local community; it is important that they have that connection. I also want to ensure good career progression in civil service buildings outside London. I recently announced a new civil service apprenticeship scheme so that we can recruit people from all backgrounds to the civil service and make sure that they can get promoted and enjoy a good civil service career.

The last Government saw civil servant jobs relocated not just to Wolverhampton, but to Stoke-on-Trent. It is important that the very top level of the civil service is also located outside of London, so will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster set out how many permanent secretaries are currently located permanently outside London? What steps will he take to ensure that more permanent secretaries are located in both Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent?

We do not have a permanent secretary in Wolverhampton, but it is important that there is career progression and that there are senior roles outside London. That should include permanent secretaries, and that should all come within our target of half of UK-based senior civil servants being located outside London by 2030.

I call the shadow Minister.

Heads of Departments have said that 60% attendance in the office is the best balance for civil servants working in Government Departments, but in an answer to a recent written parliamentary question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), the Cabinet Office said that no data exists for attendance outside London HQs—it is certainly not collected centrally. However, the Office for National Statistics has produced data about its own workforce, which, via the UK Statistics Authority, comes under the Cabinet Office. That shows a daily attendance rate of as little as 3% in some of the ONS’s regional offices. Does the Minister think that an attendance rate of 3% will help career progression and thereby help relocate civil servants outside London? Does he think that 3% is acceptable? Is this not just part of a wider pattern of non-attendance in offices outside London, and is it not time his Department published the data on attendance levels?

There have been problems at the Office for National Statistics. We launched a report into it, which has recently reported, and there will be a change in the leadership of the Office for National Statistics, as the right hon. Gentleman is aware. That report highlighted the number of people not working in the office—a pattern that emerged when his party was in power. I hope that the new leadership addresses every part of the recent report into the ONS.

The Government recently announced a number of measures to reform the civil service, including cutting up to 10,000 jobs and relocating thousands of roles across the country. These reforms are vast in scope and could have a significant impact on public services, but the Government do not seem particularly interested in setting out to Parliament the details of the changes. This House has not been given any clarity to enable proper scrutiny of which roles will be moved, cut or otherwise changed. When will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster present his full plans on civil service reform to Parliament?

On 14 May, the Government announced the launch of new thematic campuses in Aberdeen and Manchester and the closure of 11 buildings, and reaffirmed the commitment on relocating 50% of senior roles outside London, which I just mentioned. The hon. Lady says these are vast commitments, but I think we need to go faster. Reform of the state is essential, and those commitments will not be the end of civil service and state reform.