Latest news with #GeorgiaGould
The Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Government confirms next census will take place in 2031
The next census of England and Wales will take place in 2031, the Government has confirmed. Coinciding with planned censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the survey will be the 23rd to take place, having been held every decade since 1801, except in 1941 due to the Second World War. The survey provides the most accurate estimate of the number of people and households across the country – and includes questions on topics such as age, sex, nationality and ethnicity. Census results are used by a range of organisations including governments, councils and businesses, and underpin everything from the calculation of economic growth and unemployment to helping plan schools, health services and transport links and managing migration. Some 97% of households completed the most recent census of England and Wales, which took place in March 2021 while the Covid-19 pandemic was still under way. It was the first survey of its kind to prioritise the digital collection of data, with nearly nine out of 10 households completing the form online. The 2021 census is also expected to provide £5.5 billion in benefits to central and local government and the private sector over the following decade. Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould said: 'The 2031 census is an important milestone providing essential insights for businesses and public services. 'It will support our delivery of a decade of national renewal – targeting public services where they are needed, managing migration and growing our economy.' Planning for the 2031 census began last month, with the UK Statistics Authority recommending that the Government asks the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to carry out the survey. National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency also recommended the census take place in 2031. The decision to call a mandatory census of the population can be taken only by the Government. But the ONS has already started its preparations and will launch a public consultation later this autumn to collect feedback on what should be included in the survey.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Government confirms next census will take place in 2031
The next census of England and Wales will take place in 2031, the Government has confirmed. Coinciding with planned censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the survey will be the 23rd to take place, having been held every decade since 1801, except in 1941 due to the Second World War. The survey provides the most accurate estimate of the number of people and households across the country – and includes questions on topics such as age, sex, nationality and ethnicity. Census results are used by a range of organisations including governments, councils and businesses, and underpin everything from the calculation of economic growth and unemployment to helping plan schools, health services and transport links and managing migration. Some 97% of households completed the most recent census of England and Wales, which took place in March 2021 while the Covid-19 pandemic was still under way. It was the first survey of its kind to prioritise the digital collection of data, with nearly nine out of 10 households completing the form online. The 2021 census is also expected to provide £5.5 billion in benefits to central and local government and the private sector over the following decade. Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould said: 'The 2031 census is an important milestone providing essential insights for businesses and public services. 'It will support our delivery of a decade of national renewal – targeting public services where they are needed, managing migration and growing our economy.' Planning for the 2031 census began last month, with the UK Statistics Authority recommending that the Government asks the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to carry out the survey. National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency also recommended the census take place in 2031. The decision to call a mandatory census of the population can be taken only by the Government. But the ONS has already started its preparations and will launch a public consultation later this autumn to collect feedback on what should be included in the survey.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Welfare bill revealed Labour's new MPs have minds of their own
As Labour officials sounded warnings to Downing Street last month about the scale of the rebellion against the government's welfare bill, one concern was particularly stark: many of the supposedly-loyal 2024 intake were among the rebels. Officials were told not to worry, however, sources have told the Guardian. Many of those MPs had been personally selected at the general election by Morgan McSweeney and other senior advisers to Keir Starmer. The 'Starmtroopers', as they had come to be known, could be talked down with a simple phone call. This week's dramatic events in the Commons, when ministers had to gut their own bill less than two hours before a vote when confronted by a widespread and sustained rebellion, have proved the folly of making assumptions about the class of 2024. Far from being blindly loyal, these 243 MPs have proved in their first year to be a diverse, wilful and occasionally troublesome group to manage. 'We are showing ourselves to be slightly less controllable by the party than people would have thought,' said one. Another added: 'They are finding out we are capable of independent thought, because many of us have actually lived a life beforehand. We are not just lobby fodder [MPs who have little role but to vote as they are told].' Among the new Labour MPs were Chris Ward, Starmer's former chief of staff, who is now his parliamentary aide; Georgia Gould, the head of Starmer's local Camden council; and Josh Simons, the former head of the Starmerite thinktank Labour Together, who did all vote for the bill on Tuesday. Several were selected late in the day, leading to accusations that the leadership was 'parachuting in' its favoured candidates before local activists could object. They included Torsten Bell, the former head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, and Luke Akehurst, a member of Labour's governing National Executive Committee. But several of the new intake have participated, or even spearheaded, rebellions against the government in their first 12 months. Chris Hinchliff, the MP for North East Hertfordshire, led a rebellion against the planning bill. His colleague Neil Duncan-Jordan, organised one against the cuts to winter fuel payments. Duncan-Jordan is emblematic of a particular sort of new MP: the 33 'bonus' Labour MPs who were not expected to win their seats and are proving difficult to whip. This was abundantly clear during this week's standoff between the government and backbenchers. Out of the 126 signatories to the first reasoned amendment, which would have put the bill on pause indefinitely, 70 were newly elected MPs. They included Yuan Yang, the former Financial Times journalist, and Polly Billington, who advised Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader. 'The Starmtrooper stuff was completely insane,' said one former Labour adviser who was close to the selection process. 'These are a clever, impressive group of people. But with that comes independent thought.' Labour insider say there are several reasons this intake of MP is proving trickier to manage than expected. Beyond the bonus MPs, many of whom were not carefully vetted, there is a far larger group of members who have brought with them expertise from various sectors of society and are unwilling to act against the interests of those they used to represent. Marie Tidball, for example, introduced Starmer on stage at the Labour conference in 2023. But as a disabled MP and long-term campaigner for disability rights, she was unwilling to vote for the welfare bill, and gave one of the most powerful speeches in the Commons against it. Others say Downing Street has been poor at giving roles to MPs who might be newly elected but are often experienced in politics or other fields. 'I'm a campaigner,' said one. 'But I've not been given any campaigning to do. I've had to invent my own local campaigns to run.' The truculence of the new intake is causing irritation for some in the party. One new MP who has remained loyal to the leadership said: 'There is a lot of political naivety here. They don't understand that a year after a historic victory, we shouldn't be undermining the leadership that helped get them elected.' Another Starmer ally said: 'This group hasn't had to vote on a war yet, or see one of their colleagues killed.' Some round the prime minister are worried that this group of MPs now has a taste for rebellion and will do so again in the future. Several are now sounding the alarm about their concerns relating to proposed changes to special educational needs, which are due to be published in the autumn. Others believe the experience of the last week might have had the opposite effect, and scared many off trying the same tactics again. 'At times it felt like we came close to toppling the government,' said one new MP. 'We won't try that again in a hurry.'
The Guardian
14-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Civil service is ‘too remote' from people's lives across UK, says minister
The Whitehall civil service is too remote from people's lives and needs to be 'turned inside out' as part of plans to drive three of Keir Starmer's missions from outside London, a Cabinet Office minister has said. Georgia Gould, a former leader of Camden council who had a meteoric rise after her election as a Labour MP last year, said the government's plan to move thousands more civil service jobs out of London was not about just 'having offices in places' – and Whitehall civil servants needed to be more familiar with the day-to-day problems in frontline services from health centres to family hubs. She said her job was to help close the 'big gap between those doing the frontline operational roles and those who are making policies' by helping them to work together, share data and come up with new ideas about how to improve people's lives – especially those who 'fall through the cracks' of different public services. Gould told the Guardian that Whitehall working would be 'turned inside out', as the Cabinet Office announced Starmer's health mission would be based in Leeds, its opportunity mission in Sheffield and its growth mission in Darlington, with civil servants working with local government and frontline workers to pioneer new approaches. The Cabinet Office announced in May that major Whitehall government buildings were to be shut by ministers as they seek to shed 12,000 civil servant jobs in London, while moving thousands of roles to cities across the UK. It set a target of 50% of all senior civil servants being based outside London within five years, with the aim of policy being made closer to the communities affected. Gould said the speed of change needed to rise, as some regional campuses of civil servants were still too divorced from where their work had an impact. 'I've gone to visit a lot of the hubs and it's great that people are coming from those places and working there, but sometimes they still have their departmental corners and they're not really working any differently with the places that they're situated in,' she said. 'So I think there's a massive opportunity to bring the civil servants together with … communities to design public services from the bottom up, work out what's going on on the frontline and change things.' Gould said her approach to the job of public service reform was informed by her time at Camden, where the council transformed children's services on her watch. 'Camden is really not that far but Whitehall felt very, very far away and it often felt that the kind of experience of the frontline just wasn't taken into account when decisions were being made,' she said. 'There's one way of making policy – doing submissions, thinking about things in a room, about what works best – and there's another way, which is getting alongside those on the frontline, whether that's housing staff or jobcentre staff.' She added: 'They know the problems, they know what doesn't work, and testing new approaches and then scaling them up … I think that is incredibly energising for civil servants to work in that way. They don't always feel like they have permission, they don't know how to start.' Gould said civil servants she had spoken to were excited by her plans but also made clear that 'that's not how we've done things' traditionally. 'It's really a new approach,' she said. 'It is about giving people actively the space to test new approaches and they identify on the frontline barriers that we're creating at the centre.' Gould was elected in Queen's Park and Maida Vale last year and became a minister immediately. She is the daughter of one the architects of New Labour, Philip Gould, and has previously described a childhood out delivering Labour leaflets before she could speak. Her portfolio in the Cabinet Office, under Pat McFadden, spans from public service reform to public sector procurement. Asked about the US 'department for government efficiency' and Reform UK's attempts to emulate it in Britain, Gould said the government was onboard with cutting waste through better procurement, but that innovating based on frontline experience could also save money. 'Everyone takes their own approach, and I think there is absolutely a role for looking at value for money through contracts. Basic efficiency should just be the baseline of doing good government … but I think when we're talking about people-based services, I think we have to design things differently, because often we have people costing millions of pounds who are using multiple services and we're not really supporting them. If we were much more focused on prevention or working with them at an earlier point we'd save a huge amount of money.' She cited her experience working with someone who lacked the confidence to go to job interviews partly because of self-consciousness about his teeth. The human-centred approach that worked to help him had been enabling him to see a dentist. On artificial intelligence, which is being embedded in the civil service as a way of speeding up processes, Gould said she did not see a conflict with a drive to provide human-based services and that AI could cut time spent on paperwork. She said: 'If frontline officers are spending all their time on laborious processes, that is really, really frustrating, so I think they can free up their time so those processes are much easier through AI.'
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Ministers ban civil servants from buying gay and trans pride flag lanyards in drive to reduce 'wasteful spending'
Civil servants will be banned from buying lanyards featuring a gay and trans pride flag under a clampdown on 'wasteful spending' in Whitehall, ministers have confirmed. Purchasing cords for security passes that feature the 'progress flag' will be affected by a review of taxpayers money spent on 'corporate-branded and non-essential merchandise'. The flag features the Pride rainbow flag but adds other stripes and chevrons to represent other 'marginalised communities' including transgender and those with HIV /AIDS. And in an answer to a written question by Tory MP Mike Wood, first reported by the Times, Cabinet Office Minister Georgia Gould confirmed that flag-bearing lanyards were included in the review. She noted that staff will be allowed to wear their existing lanyards, but added: 'The announcement sets out the requirements for all departments to review their policies on procuring corporate-branded and non-essential merchandise, with a view to restricting future purchases. 'These stricter rules will permit government merchandise only when essential, for example, in overseas trade and diplomacy, or to promote growth.' The Cabinet Office announced last month that it planned to refuse to fork out for 'unnecessary branded merchandise' and staff 'away days'. Senior minister Pat McFadden said that 'cutting wasteful spending' means cash can be targeted on other public services such as the police and schools. Ministers have pledged to slash the cost of bureaucracy, and the latest measures come after civil service credit cards were frozen. The Cabinet Office set out requirements for departments to review their policies on branded and non-essential merchandise, with the idea that future purchases could be restricted. New rules will mean that Government-branded kit will only be allowed when it is essential for official work such as overseas diplomacy. As well as the restrictions on merchandise, officials will be told that team-building days will have to be held in Government buildings to avoid paying to hire venues. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Mr McFadden said: 'By cutting wasteful spending we can target resources at frontline public services with more teachers, extra hospital appointments and police back on the beat. 'We will use taxpayers' money to deliver our Plan for Change, kick-starting economic growth, rebuilding the NHS and strengthening our borders.'
