Transparency data

Cabinet Office Annual Statement on Compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, 2023-24

Published 27 September 2024

1. Introduction

The Cabinet Office is committed to research integrity across all of 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, geographers, as well as some members of the policy profession.

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, published in August 2023, the department committed to ensuring that all departmental business cases, seeking approval for spend, will either include an evaluation plan or justification for not taking forward an evaluation. In reviewing the submitted cases, the Investment Committee will consider whether a proportionate approach has been taken and raise any concerns with the project team and Ministers. These commitments were embedded into departmental processes during 2023-2024. 

This publication sets out further efforts to ensure research integrity, both completed and planned. A timeline of the department’s key actions is featured at Annex A.

2. Governance

The department has recognised that conducting research with integrity requires support. The department’s named individuals with responsibility for research integrity are:

Senior member of staff overseeing research integrity	Joint Chief Analysts: Laura Gilbert (Director of Data Science) Steffan Jones (Director, Joint Data and Analysis Centre) Lucie Moore Head of Evaluation Task Force
First point of contact for research integrity information	Deputy Chief Analysts: Lisa Jordan (Head of Analysis & Insight team)

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.
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) 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.

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 social 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 last two years, the 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.

The Cabinet Office Investment Committee, in partnership with the Evaluation Task Force, has mandated inclusion of an evaluation template with business cases submitted for approval.  The evaluation template either states why it is not appropriate for the business case to have an evaluation plan, or it gives details of the type of evaluation, timing of evaluation and the budget secured for evaluation. These templates are scrutinised ahead of Investment Committee meetings.

3. Process to support culture of research integrity

The Cabinet Office led on cross-government work to improve research transparency in relation to evaluations, through the development of the Evaluation Registry. The Evaluation Registry was 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 is a world-leading system, giving government a unified location for sharing and finding evaluations.

The department also published an Evaluation Strategy in August 2023, contributing to its processes in support of a culture of research integrity. The department has been taking forward the actions identified in the strategy.

In the 2023-24 Research Concordat publication, the department 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

The guidance on research transparency and quality assurance was prioritised. This has been added to the Cabinet Office intranet and promoted through the department’s analytical professions. It will continue to be regularly promoted. The guidance includes plans for implementing processes to support regular clearance for publication of research plans before research commences, of publishing research findings promptly on completion, and sample terms for tender documents.

The ethical research guidance is currently in production and will be shared across the department in due course. 

Upon further review, it was determined that CO guidance on supporting quality research was not required at the current time, as there is sufficient existing material (e.g. GSR Publication Protocol, new guidance and a checklist from the GSR on supporting quality research). This material will continue to be promoted amongst the department’s analytical professions. SCS continue to give advice to improve the quality of research across the department and ensure that analysts are supported.

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; the central record will include each project’s Evaluation Registry link for ease of cross-referencing between these systems.

4. Training and awareness raising 

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.

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.

The department’s GSR profession has 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.

Officials also benefited from the training material provided by the Science Capability Hub, which GO-Science established to share knowledge and best practice with all officials with an interest in science. The Hub is building 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).

5. 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 that developed it. In developing the Evaluation Registry, the Cabinet Office engaged departments across government, to ensure that the tool was built to meet as many needs as possible and hence to support our shared aspirations for improved research transparency. All planned, live, and completed Government evaluations from 1st April 2024 onwards must be added to the Registry.

6. Open science and research protocols 

The department identified open science and transparency of research as a core area where it can strengthen its practices, and we have since developed guidance on research transparency to present in one place the principles of research transparency that those in the department are expected to adhere to; place the department’s central record of research on a defined footing; and establish 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).

	Number	% of projects commenced
Number of research projects commenced in the year	175
Of projects commenced in the year, those where a research protocol was published before the research commenced	17	10%
Of projects commenced in the year, those where an analysis plan was published before the research commenced	16	9%

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 Table 2 below).

	Number		% of projects commenced
	2023-24	2022-23	2023-24	2022-23
Number of research projects commenced in the year	175	194
Of projects commenced in the year, those where a research protocol was published before the research commenced	17	23	10%	12%
Of projects commenced in the year, those where an analysis plan was published before the research commenced	16	25	9%	13%
Number of research projects concluded in the year	121	117
Of projects concluded in the year, those where results were published	20	5	17%	4%
Of projects concluded in the year, those where results were published within 12 weeks of conclusion	19	4	16%	3%
Reports not published: reasons (where recorded)
Publication pending / awaiting sign-off	10	5	8%	4%
Security or national security considerations or restrictions	27	8	22%	7%
Commercial confidentiality	15	10	12%	9%
Legally protected confidential advice to ministers	2	1	2%	1%

Although results were published for only 20 out of 121 research projects concluded in the year, this was a substantial improvement on the previous year, as shown in table 3 below.  Reasons for non-publication were given for more than half of the cases where research had been completed within the year but not published; this is a substantial improvement on 2022-23 when reasons for non-publication were only given for a fifth of cases.

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.

7. 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.

1. For 2023-2024, the central record, and the consequent reporting within this statement covers all Cabinet Office units except independent inquiries. The actions of these inquiries are inherently independent of government, including any decisions they take around any research they might commission or conduct. ↩