Transparency data

Cabinet Office Annual Statement on Compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, 2022-2023

Published 13 July 2023

The Cabinet Office exists to support the Prime Minister and Cabinet government. It leads and coordinates the government’s response to cross-departmental challenges. It also acts as the corporate headquarters for the government as a whole. The department is both the command centre during immediate crises as well as the long-term steward and direction-setter for government. The Cabinet Office includes No.10 and, together with HM Treasury, forms the centre of government.

This statement summarises the Cabinet Office’s activities in support of research integrity over the financial year 2022-2023. This is the first such annual statement that the Cabinet Office has produced.

1. Introduction

The Cabinet Office is committed to research integrity across all its business units. Much of the research conducted within the department falls under the broad umbrella of social science research, and is typically conducted or commissioned by the department’s analysts who are mostly government social researchers, economists, and statisticians. Others responsible for research within the department include user researchers (especially in digital teams), operational researchers, and geographers, as well as some members of the policy profession.

During the year, the department has identified that a priority area for research integrity in the department is transparency. Draft guidance has been developed to govern research transparency in the department, and will be issued early in 2023-2024 to cover all areas of research.

To make decisions without the benefit of research evidence to inform them would result in worse decisions being made, so it is essential that high-quality research and evaluation happens and is made publicly available. The department has made commitments to ensure that proportionate evaluative research is built into all new projects. In its evaluation strategy, due to be published shortly, the department will make the following commitments:

• All departmental business cases, seeking approval for spend, will include an evaluation plan or justification for not taking forward an evaluation. In reviewing the submitted cases, the Cabinet Office Approvals Board will consider whether a proportionate approach has been taken and raise any concerns with the project team and Ministers.
• A governance board will be compiled to ensure that all relevant projects have specific and actionable evaluation plans and to monitor progress in delivery of these. The board will examine barriers to effective implementation and consider appropriate resolution.

These commitments will be embedded into departmental processes during 2023-2024. Once robust evaluative research practices are in place for new areas of activity, it will be extended to cover high-risk and high-spend activities that are currently business-as-usual, to ensure that the department steadily expands the proportion of its activity that is covered by a robust evidence base providing evidence of effectiveness of our interventions.

A timeline of the department’s key actions related to research integrity — both completed and planned — is featured in Annex A.

2. Governance

The department has recognised that conducting research with integrity requires support. The department has recently appointed joint Chief Analysts and joint Deputy Chief Analysts. Future research oversight within the department is under review.

The department’s named individuals with responsibility for research integrity are:

Joint Chief Analysts: Senior member of staff overseeing research integrity	Laura Gilbert (Director of Data Science); Steffan Jones (Director, Joint Data and Analysis Centre)
Deputy Chief Analyst: First point of contact for research integrity information	Catherine Hutchinson (Head of Evaluation Task Force)

The following key bodies and groups within the department have important roles in relation to research integrity:

	Role
Cabinet Office Analysis Function Executive	Led by the Chief Analysts, this is a collection of the most senior analysts in every area of the Cabinet Office. The executive seeks to strengthen the quality of analysis in the department, to help make the Cabinet Office a great place to be an analyst and to provide a voice for analysis in the department. Analysts across the function have an important role to play in much of the research that the department undertakes.
Senior Responsible Officer for evaluation	Oversees the implementation of improvements set out in the department’s evaluation strategy, promotes the importance of evaluation across the department, and assesses progress. They also have a role in ensuring that standards in the production and publication of evaluations are maintained, alongside the relevant heads of profession and project SROs within the department.
Analysis and Insight	Responsible for creating and maintaining the departmental record of research and guidance development.
Evaluation Task Force	Development and ownership of the Evaluation Registry, which will contain full details of the department’s evaluative research. (Cross-government role.)
Analytical professions	Most analysts in the department are members of (at least) one of the analytical professions. Each profession provides a forum for its members to provide mutual support: Government Social Research (GSR); Government Economic Service (GES); Government Statistical Service (GSS); Government Operational Research Service (GORS); and Government Geography Profession.
Departmental Heads of Professions	Each of the analytical professions is led by a Head of Profession (HoP) who is responsible for ensuring that the relevant professional standards are applied and upheld across the Cabinet Office, for example in the recruitment and badging of analysts, the conduct and publication of analysis, and professional development.

The department has identified the growing need for enhanced analytical skills and has support and training to recognise and develop analysts with specific data science and evaluation expertise.

Membership of an analytical profession is helpful for encouraging research integrity. It ensures that analysts have to follow a set of standards, receive support in their professional practice, and can expect quality assurance for their work. Consequently, the department expects that most analysts undertaking research within the department should be badged members of the relevant analytical profession, and that those who are not should have support and quality assurance for their research provided by a suitable member of an analytical profession. The department provides support for people to become badged. The chief analysts and heads of the analytical professions are responsible for badging and recruitment of analysts and for enforcement of standards.

During the year, the Cabinet Office Analysis Function (COAF) Executive has introduced processes to ensure that all analysts in the department have the benefit of oversight from a senior civil service analyst. This means that teams of analysts that do not report to a senior civil service analyst now have ‘dotted line’ reporting arrangements to one, strengthening professional support and oversight.

3. Processes to support culture of research integrity

The Cabinet Office is leading on cross-government work to improve research transparency in relation to evaluations, through the development of the Evaluation Registry. The Evaluation Registry is being developed by the Evaluation Task Force (a joint Cabinet Office and HM Treasury unit) and developers in the Cabinet Office’s Incubator for Automation and Innovation (i.AI), with input from prospective users from across government. The Evaluation Registry will be a world-leading system, giving government a unified location for sharing and finding evaluations.

During the year, the department has identified the need for new guidance and processes in relation to:

• Research transparency and quality assurance
• Ethical research, including ethical approval and use of personal data
• Supporting quality research, including support for analysts

Of these, the department has prioritised research transparency. Draft internal guidance has been developed, intended to give researchers clear processes supporting research transparency. The draft includes plans for implementing specific processes to support regular clearance for publication of research plans before research commences, and of research findings promptly on completion. The guidance is due to be finalised early in 2023-2024. Once completed, it will be made available on the Cabinet Office intranet and promoted through the department’s analytical professions.

The other areas will be prioritised for the development of guidance and processes in the future. Further communication and checks from the Chief Analysts will ensure those in the department understand the extent to which it is clear that those processes can be used to address any problems related to research integrity and address any knowledge gaps.

The department has also developed its draft Evaluation Strategy, contributing to its processes in support of a culture of research integrity. The Evaluation Strategy is due for publication early in 2023-2024.

The department has established a central record of its research and evaluation projects, allowing greater visibility of progress. This will complement the Cabinet Office’s use of the Evaluation Registry (see above), which will also act as a tool for sharing methods used and facilitate greater sharing of learning and insight between Cabinet Office teams; once the Evaluation Registry is in use, the central record will include each project’s Evaluation Registry link for ease of cross-referencing between these systems.

4. Guidance for researchers, employers and commissioners of research

As detailed above, the department has identified research transparency as an initial focus for its work on improving guidance to researchers, employers and commissioners of research. Draft guidance has been prepared during the year and is due for finalisation and promulgation early in 2023-2024. This will cover commissioned research, as well as research conducted within the department, so will feature things like sample clauses for tendering. Other areas requiring guidance have been identified and scheduled for future development.

Social researchers in the department already have available the GSR Publication Protocol, which provides valuable guidance on some publication-related aspects of research integrity. And researchers across the department have access to the GO-Science guidance on the Concordat to support research integrity.

The departmental intranet pages currently include a page outlining each of the analytical professions and introducing their heads of profession. The department has identified that the analysis pages of its intranet should be further enhanced to provide additional information and support about research integrity. These expanded pages will include the guidance related to research integrity, as it is developed and deployed.

5. Training and awareness raising

The Government Social Research Technical Framework, which is applicable to the social researchers in the department, lists “instilling professional integrity and high professional standards” as key skills for leading research. The GSR Code: People, identifies that members of the profession should be appropriately skilled and continuously developed. The department adopts a 70:20:10 approach to continuous professional development, expecting around 70% of development to be on-the-job, 20% social learning, and 10% formal training.

During the year, the department’s GSR profession launched a buddy scheme, with each social researcher having a (typically more senior) ‘buddy’ to act as a mentor and quality assurer. The objectives of this scheme include several that are supportive of research integrity, through informal pastoral support, advice on continuous professional development, and supporting members to produce work of high quality.

Other training on research integrity in the year has included sessions offered by the Government Office for Science (GO-Science). Staff with an interest in research integrity were able to make use of GO-Science’s two teach-ins. Recordings of the teach-ins remain available for staff to use. We will review whether additional, department-specific, training is required during the next year.

Officials also benefited from the training material provided by the cross-government support service, established by GO-Science to share knowledge and best practice with all officials with an interest in science. GO-Science provides access to a repository of documentation, templates, examples of good practice and links to training material such as recordings of teach-ins by GO-Science and the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO).

6. External engagement

The department aims to develop strong practice for research integrity — and especially research transparency — to share those across government, and in turn to learn from the best practices of other departments. The department has participated in the cross-government network for research integrity that has been coordinated by GO-Science, contributing examples of its practices around research recording and reporting, as well as sample contractual terms for commissioned research.

As described above, the Cabinet Office is also the home of the Evaluation Registry and the two teams developing it. In developing the Evaluation Registry, the Cabinet Office has engaged departments across government, to ensure that the tool is built to meet as many needs as possible and hence to support our shared aspirations for improved research transparency.

7. Open Science and research protocols

During the year, the department has identified open science and transparency of research as a core area where it can strengthen its practices. We have developed draft guidance on research transparency, which is due to come into effect early in 2023-2024.

The new guidance:

• presents in one place the principles of research transparency that those in the department are expected to adhere to;
• places the department’s central record of research on a defined footing; and
• establishes a simplified procedure for publishing research plans and research findings.

The department has developed a central record of research conducted within, or commissioned by the department^{[footnote 1]}. From the research covered by the central record, we are able to report on the department’s progress in applying Open Science approaches when research is conducted or commissioned (see Table 1 below).

Table 1: Open Science and research protocols

	Number	% of projects commenced
Number of research projects commenced in the year	194	–
Of projects commenced in the year, those where a research protocol was published before the research commenced	23	12%
Of projects commenced in the year, those where an analysis plan was published before the research commenced	25	13%

8. Publication of research

From the department’s central record of research conducted within or commissioned by the department, we are able to report on the department’s progress in publishing research (see Tables 2 and 3 below).

Table 2: Practice on publishing research

	Number	% of projects concluded
Number of research projects concluded in the year	117	–
Of projects concluded in the year, those where results were published	5	4%
Of projects concluded in the year, those where results were published within 12 weeks of conclusion	4	3%

Table 3: Reasons for non-publication of reports

	Number	% of projects concluded
Publication pending / awaiting sign-off	5	4%
Security or national security considerations or restrictions	8	7%
Commercial confidentiality	10	9%
Legally protected confidential advice to ministers	1	1%

The department has identified that one of the barriers to prompt publication of research has been the absence of a consistent approach by which research outputs can receive publishing approvals. The department’s draft guidance on research transparency is therefore intended to institute a system whereby research outputs will be collated periodically, reviewed by a suitable senior civil servant analyst, and sent to ministers for approval as a bundle. Where they require specific attention or require faster publication than this process would allow, research outputs may still be approved via standalone submission to ministers using the department’s standard procedures. We will report on the implementation of this guidance in next year’s annual statement.

9. Research misconduct

Research misconduct within the department would be investigated and handled through the department’s disciplinary processes, whistleblowing guidance and the Civil Service Code as appropriate. In the future we will undertake a review to assess whether any additional or specific procedures are necessary for handling allegations of potential misconduct.

The department’s records on disciplinary matters do not currently contain a category or subcategory for research misconduct, so it is not possible to identify whether any incidents of research misconduct were alleged or formally investigated during the year.

10. Annex A — Summary of identified actions

The department will maintain this record of identified actions, reporting on progress in this annual statement each year.

Timeline	Event	Progress
2022-2023	Establish a central record of the department’s research.	Initial version established.
2022-2023	Review departmental research governance.	Appointed joint chief analysts and joint deputy chief analysts. The need for a chief scientific advisor to be kept under review.
Early 2023-2024	Departmental research transparency guidance made available to researchers.	Draft created during 2022-2023. On track for sharing via intranet in early 2023-2024.
Early 2023-2024	Departmental Evaluation Strategy published.	Draft created during 2022-2023. Scheduled for approval and publishing in early 2023-2024.
2023-2024	Embedding into processes the requirement for all business cases to include an evaluation plan or justification for not taking forward an evaluation (including within Cabinet Office Approvals Board processes).	Commitment established in draft evaluation strategy. To be implemented in 2023-2024.
2023-2024	Review and revision of departmental intranet pages for analysts regarding research integrity.
2023-2024	Development (and deployment onto departmental intranet pages) of guidance and processes regarding: 1. Research transparency and quality assurance; 2. Ethical research, including ethical approval and use of personal data; and 3. Supporting quality research, including support for analysts
2023-2024	Assessment of department-specific training needs for communicating research integrity to those in the department.
2024-2025	Assessing processes for handling allegations of research misconduct in the department, to include processes for learning from incidents of misconduct and creating an environment where people are comfortable reporting incidents of potential misconduct.
2024-2025	Undertake gap mapping exercise to understand the extent to which existing departmental activity and spending is supported by a robust evidence base.
2025-2030	Prioritised programme of evaluative research, steadily increasing the proportion of the department’s activity that is supported by a robust evidence base.	(Timescales inherently tentative ahead of the gap mapping exercise establishing the scale and scope required of this programme.)

1. For 2022-2023, the central record, and the consequent reporting within this statement, covers 33 out of 41 business units within the Cabinet Office. In future years, the central record will be extended to cover all of the department’s business units. The number of business units varied during the year due to machinery-of-government changes.

   For some administrative purposes, independent inquiries are notionally treated as sitting within the Cabinet Office. As the actions of these inquiries are inherently independent of government, including any decisions they take around any research they might commission or conduct, they are not included in the department’s central record or in this reporting. ↩