Transparency data

Cabinet Office annual statement on compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, 2024-2025

Published 16 December 2025

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 Cabinet Office’s purpose is ensuring that government works together to deliver for the people of the United Kingdom. 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 2024-2025. This is the third annual statement that the Cabinet Office has produced.

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 social researchers, economists, and statisticians. Others responsible for research within the department include user researchers (especially in digital teams), operational researchers, geographers and policy professionals.

High quality research is integral to support effective decision making. It is also important that, where possible, the evidence underpinning decisions that impact the public are transparent and accessible, as this can help foster trust in the UK government. The department has made commitments to ensure that proportionate evaluative research is built into all new projects and policies. 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.

Governance

The department has recognised that conducting research with integrity requires support. The following key bodies and groups within the department have important roles in relation to research integrity:

Senior members of staff overseeing research integrity : Chief Analyst, Deputy Chief Analyst

The following key bodies and groups within the department also support research integrity:

Key body/group	Role
Cabinet Office Analysis Function Executive	Led by the Chief Analyst, the executive comprises the most senior analysts in every area of the Cabinet Office. The goal of the executive is to support the Analysis Function to enable the delivery of improved outcomes for the public. Using high quality analysis, research, and evidence enables effective identification of user needs to ensure good policy design. It also leads to informed decision making and efficient service delivery, ensuring that the government makes the best use of public resources.
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.
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 contains full details of the department’s evaluative research. (This is a 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 Government Digital and Data profession.

Research integrity is encouraged through the standards set by individual professions. Each profession has a clear leadership and sign-off structure, with processes and expectations around quality assurance. Consequently, the department expects that most analysts undertaking research within the department should be badged members of an analytical profession, and that those who are not should have support and quality assurance for their research provided by the relevant profession. Profession membership is actively encouraged within the department, most recently with the internal ‘Join a Profession’ initiative to prompt all Civil Servants to join a relevant profession.

As explained above, 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 an evaluation plan is not appropriate, or gives details of the type, timing and resources allocated to evaluation.

Queries about research integrity arrangements in the Cabinet Office may be addressed to research-integrity-concordat@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

Processes to support a culture of research integrity

The Cabinet Office has led on cross-government work to improve research transparency in relation to evaluations through the development of the Evaluation Registry^{[footnote 1]}. The Evaluation Registry, launched publicly in March 2025, is a world-leading system, providing a unified location for sharing and finding government evaluations.

The department also published an Evaluation Strategy^{[footnote 2]} 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, and is currently drafting an updated version to cover the next spending review period 2026-2029.

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 below), 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.

Guidance for researchers, employers and commissioners of research

In line with the commitments made in previous iterations of the CO statement in support of the research integrity concordat, the analysis function has developed three internal policies to support researchers within the department and clearly outline expectations around research integrity. All guidance has been added to the Cabinet Office intranet and promoted through the department’s analytical professions. They will continue to be regularly promoted. These include:

• New Cabinet Office research ethical guidance has been published to set out the expected standards and responsibilities for individuals conducting research for or on behalf of the government. This guidance covers core principles and processes for ethical research. It also provides information on the definition of research, data protection, and other relevant ethical frameworks including the process for escalating ethical concerns.
• Accessible research publications guidelines have been drafted to ensure that all research reports meet the legally required accessibility standards for publication on GOV.UK. 
• The Government Social Research quality assurance guidance clearly sets out the expectations of proportionate quality assurance protocols for research both conducted by, or on behalf of government. The guidance covers planning and scoping, project set-up, research development, data collection and analysis, interpretation of findings and publication.

Each of these policies promotes cross-government guidance and standards produced by the Analytical Function and analytical professions, as well as setting local Cabinet Office standards and processes.

Further work is ongoing to ensure adherence to the published guidance and further strengthen internal assurance processes, particularly around research quality and ethics.

Training and awareness raising

In the 2024 Civil Service People Survey, 59.9% of analysts across the Civil Service rated their experience of learning and development positively, above the Civil Service average^{[footnote 3]}. Cabinet Office staff have access to a wide range of training opportunities, both centrally and through their professions. 

All Cabinet Office teams have access to ringfenced funding for training, and open-source training courses are regularly signposted. The cross Civil Service analytical learning hub, created by the Analysis Function and the Data Science Campus, offers a wide range of courses with a specific focus on research. The Government Campus and Civil Service Learning host quality-assured training courses with tailored suggestions for staff. 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 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.

The GSR profession is also planning tailored training following the publication of the research ethics guidance, which will be delivered in 2025/26.

This year, the Cabinet Office has run a new 12 month training programme for analysts focused on the application of artificial intelligence (AI) AI within government research, including how principles of research integrity apply to research using AI.

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).

External engagement

The Cabinet Office is committed to modelling and championing best practices in research integrity and transparency, not only for its own work but across the whole of government. We actively share our expertise through forums like the cross-government research integrity network, coordinated by the Government Office for Science, and the Cross Government Evaluation Group (CGEG), while also developing central tools and setting clear standards for others to follow.

The department has also provided robust oversight to ensure compliance. The Evaluation Task Force monitors usage and can escalate any continued failure to the Office for Statistical Regulation. By creating and mandating the Registry, the Cabinet Office provides the means and sets a non-negotiable standard for all departments, raising the bar for evidence-based accountability across government.

Open Science and research protocols

As outlined in the next section, the department has demonstrated its commitment to open science through the increase in projects that have been published this year. It should be noted that for the Cabinet Office, full transparency is not always possible. While most research should be open to scrutiny to ensure quality and accountability, some work must remain unpublished to protect national security and maintain confidentiality in policy development. As noted in Table 1 below, 40% of completed projects this year have provided a legitimate reason why publication has not been sought. This shows how we are balancing the commitment to research integrity with a duty to protect the public interest and ensure the effective functioning of government.

To put the principles of open science into practice, the department has implemented a Research Transparency Framework. Building on our first statement of research integrity in 2023, this establishes clear standards for all research we conduct or commission. A key component is our central research record, an annual process that allows us to track and report our research and transparency, as outlined in the following section. This ensures we are not just championing transparency, but actively embedding it into our operations.

Publication of research

The rate of publication within the Cabinet Office has substantially increased over the past three financial years, from 4% in 2022-23 to 30% in 2024-25. There are also more projects awaiting publication, from 2% to 13% over the same period. This means that over 40% of projects completed this year either have been or will be published.

Table 1: Aggregate data for financial year 2024-25, compared with the previous two years^{[footnote 4]}.

Category	Number of projects 2024-25	Number of projects 2023-24	Number of projects 2022-23	Percentage of projects 2024-25	Percentage of projects 2023-24	Percentage of projects 2022-23
Research projects commenced	65	152	182
Of projects commenced, a research protocol was published	3	16	21	5%	11%	12%
Of projects commenced, an analysis plan was published	3	14	23	5%	9%	13%
Research projects concluded	40	119	113
Of projects concluded, results were published	12	18	5	30%	15%	4%
Of projects completed, reason given for no publication	-	-	-	-	-	-
Publication pending/ awaiting sign-off	5	9	2	13%	8%	2%
Security or national security considerations or restrictions	3	27	7	8%	23%	6%
Commercial confidentiality	2	13	10	5%	11%	9%
Ongoing investigations or criminal proceedings	0	1	0	0%	1%	0%
Legally protected confidential advice to ministers	1	2	1	3%	2%	1%
Data sharing limitations or constraints associated with sharing securely	5	17	0	13%	14%	0%
No reason provided	24	50	93	60%	42%	82%

We have seen a reduction in the overall number of research projects, which has fallen by nearly two-thirds since 2022-23. Concurrently, while post-completion transparency has improved, pre-registration of research protocols and analysis plans has declined to 5%. There has also been an increase since last year in the percentage of projects that have not provided a reason why publication is not sought, from 42% to 60%. However, this is still an improvement on two years ago where this figure was as high as 82%.There has also been an increase in data sharing limitations, now accounting for 13-14% of non-publications for the past two years. 

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	Details	Progress
Ongoing	Establish a central record of the department’s research.	Initial version established and subsequently updated in 2024 and 2025. The approach to maintaining this list will be reviewed before the 25/26 return.
2022-2023	Review departmental research governance.	Chief analyst appointed and in position.
Early 2023-2024	Departmental research transparency guidance made available to researchers.	Guidance produced, socialised with the CO analytical function and uploaded as a reference document on the department’s intranet.
Early 2023-2024	Departmental Evaluation Strategy published.	Published August 2023 and identified priorities being taken forward. This will be reviewed in the financial year 2025/26.
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 published evaluation strategy. Implemented in 2023-2024.
2023-2024	Review and revision of departmental intranet pages for analysts regarding research integrity.	Additional material added
2023-2024	Development (and deployment onto departmental intranet pages) of guidance and processes regarding: - Research transparency and quality assurance - Ethical research, including ethical approval and use of personal data - Supporting quality research, including support for analysts	Guidance on research transparency was developed and deployed on intranet pages. Guidance on ethical research, quality assurance and accessible research has been published on the intranet. SCS continue to give support and advice to improve the quality of research across the department and ensure that analysts are supported.
2023-2024	Assessment of department-specific training needs for communicating research integrity to those in the department.	Additional departmental specific training was deemed to not be required at this time, but will be kept under review. Instead, reference to relevant external guidance and training has been communicated to analysts 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.	This has been completed, and the process of escalating misconduct allegations has been outlined in the internal ethical guidance.
2024-2025	Undertake a gap mapping exercise to understand the extent to which existing departmental activity and spending is supported by a robust evidence base.	This was addressed through the spending review process completed in financial year 2025/6, where the evidence based for proposed areas of spend was assessed, and evaluation plans were mandatory and were also assessed.  The Chief Analyst, COAF Executive and HoPs will keep the need for further gap mapping under review.
2025-2030	Prioritised programme of evaluative research, steadily increasing the proportion of the department’s activity that is supported by a robust evidence base.	This will be addressed in 25/26.

1. Guidance on using the evaluation registry ↩

2. Cabinet Office evaluation strategy ↩

3. Civil Service people survey 2024 results ↩

4. Enhanced quality assurance of 2022-23 and 2023-24 data has been completed. Consequently, some figures have been refined and may differ from previously published statements. The figures presented in this statement supersede earlier versions and should be cited as the definitive data. ↩