Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little has said changes to the Civil Service People Survey are being considered that could see a shift towards the use of more real-time data.
Little told members of parliament's Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee this week that "most organisations" were moving away from large, comprehensive studies of staff sentiment towards "much faster-pulse information to get a sense of how people feel".
She said the People Survey, which was launched in 2009 and has asked more than 400,000 officials an increasing range of questions about their experience of work every autumn since, should follow such a course.
"We are currently looking at how we use the People Survey," Little said. " I think the civil service needs to move more towards live, much more specific, much more data-driven, much more technologically platformed ways of engaging and understanding our staff. So we're currently reviewing the People Survey and how we use it."
Last year PACAC conducted an inquiry into the Civil Service People Survey, which resulted in a call for departments to make better use of the data collected – and questioned the point of the flagship "Employee Engagement Index".
MPs also expressed concerns about the "indefiensible" time lag between the survey results being shared within government and its external publication, often several months later.
The Sunak government rejected the committee's call for the survey results to be made an official statistic. However its formal response to the report, published in January, confirmed options on ways to improve the survey were being examined with a view to launching a "new version" in 2025.
'No single factor' for high bullying, harassment and discrimination figures
Little, who is civil service chief operating officer in addition to being Cabinet Office perm sec, made her comments after being questioned by MPs about her department's track record of racking up high scores for bullying, harassment and discrimination in the People Survey.
The 2023 survey – results of which were published in March this year – showed 11% of Cabinet Office staff report they had experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination during the year. The cross-government average was 8%.
A 2022 review into allegations of discrimination at the Cabinet Office called for stronger leadership at the department to embed a culture of respect and inclusion “from the top” down. The study was commissioned from Ipsos following concerns raised by the PCS union.
Little, who took on her current role in April this year, acknowledged that the Cabinet Office's bullying, harassment and discrimination scores were "very high" and said driving change on the issue was one of her "big priorities". She said that the department's bullying, harassment and discrimination scores had been high since the first Civil Service People Survey was run. She suggested that the department's pivotal role at the centre of government – “being at the very heart of events” – could be a contributory factor.
"We have had a dedicated support package in place which has been externally led looking at the causes of bullying and harassment within the department," she said. "There isn't one single driving factor. I've got 40 different business units. But culture, and my teams feeling that we operate in a very high-pressured, hierarchial organisation, feeling that they can't say – or challenge – constructively in the organisation is a common theme."
Committee member Charlotte Cane asked Little why the pressures she described would necessarily lead to higher levels of discrimination.
Little said there were issues with the way People Survey questions were structured that could lead to ambiguity between bullying, harassment and discrimination, adding that "a lot" of concerns came down to "how people feel and fairness".
Later in Wednesday's session she expanded on the answer. "My experience of getting beneath the skin of BHD is that you've got to talk to people," she said. "The data helps you to focus your efforts, and which teams you need to most spend time with. But we've had a dedicated team who've been sitting beside the teams with the lowest scores, talking to staff in a very objective independent way and better understanding what's driving those issues. A lot of it is about how safe people feel to speak their mind."
The perm sec said the statistics on the Cabinet Office's complaints casework showed that about 76% resulted in "some sort of action being taken". She said there was an argument for the department to be more open about the extent to which the process delivered results. "I don't think staff have always been privy to all of that information and I think they should be," she said.
Little told MPs: "I am passionate about creating a culture where there is psychological safety and openness, so that people can both share their views but also just shout when there's a problem. That is fundamental to any organisation."
However she subsequently acknowledged that dealing with bullying, harassment and discrimination would require a "whole-department approach".
"I need every single member of our leadership team in the same place about the culture, tone and behaviour that we accept." she said.
Little said she had "recently relaunched" the "very specific leadership behaviours" expected of all Cabinet Office senior leaders.
"We are publicly and openly setting out our commitments personally on our intranet," she said. "I launched them last week. I think it's so important that people can hold us to account for specific behaviours, and if we fall short they should be able to call us out."
Little told MPs that the department was currently "digesting" its 2024 Civil Service People Survey scores, which she said would not be made public outside of government until next month.
"It does show that where we've really driven change at individual level it is starting to bear fruit. But we are really at the start of some long-term cultural change for the department as a whole," she said.