The Defence Housing Strategy review team assessed a range of organisational and delivery models to identify the approach best able to improve outcomes for Service Personnel and their families, deliver value for money, and support the long-term renewal of the Defence housing estate.

The assessment, which is summarised in the published Defence Housing Strategy, found that transferring Defence housing to a housing association would be most likely to delay improvements, increase costs, reduce operational effectiveness and undermine Crown tenancy arrangements. Additionally, expert financial advice indicated that borrowing through the private sector, outside the public sector borrowing limits, was not a feasible funding route.

The Defence Housing Strategy recommended establishing the Defence Housing Service as a professional, arms-length organisation focused on the specific needs of Service Personnel and their families and that the direct partnership with the military to support this can only be achieved within a public body. The Government supported this recommendation and is progressing legislation to create the Defence Housing Service through the Armed Forces Bill.

The Department recognises the importance of ensuring that patients have clear information about their care in the National Health Service, whether delivered by NHS providers or independent sector providers. We have recently published a set of patient experience minimum standards setting out our expectations of providers of NHS funded elective care while patients are on the waiting list.

We will provide an update on this commitment in due course.

All homes which wholly or mainly look after children must be registered with Ofsted, to ensure effective oversight and inspection of homes where children in care live. Those which provide healthcare may also need to be registered with CQC.

The use of unregistered provision reflects shortages of suitable registered provision in some areas, particularly for children with complex needs. The government has made available £53 million in match-grant funding for local authorities to create up to 200 new placements for children with complex needs by 2029, helping to address sufficiency gaps.

Ofsted have published criteria to prioritise applications to register homes that: address local need; receive departmental capital funding; or provide highly specialist care for children with complex needs and disabilities.

To improve transparency, the 2026 annual data return submitted by local authorities (SSDA903) will include a category for unregistered placements to help build a national dataset of this provision.

Regional Care Cooperatives will help reduce reliance on unregistered provision by improving regional sufficiency planning, commissioning and market oversight, enabling more children to access the right registered homes in the right place.

The General Medical Council (GMC) has published guidance on shared care agreements, which supports clinicians in deciding whether entering into a shared care agreement is appropriate for an individual patient. The GMC guidance is clear that shared care agreements are voluntary, and that a general practitioner cannot be mandated to enter a shared care agreement and may decline requests on clinical or capacity grounds.

If a shared care arrangement cannot be put in place after the treatment has been initiated, the responsibility for continued prescribing falls upon the specialist clinician, and this applies to both National Health Service and private medical care.

If a patient receives a treatment privately which subsequently becomes available on the NHS, they should discuss arrangements for transferring or sharing care with their NHS clinician.

The General Medical Council (GMC) has published guidance on shared care agreements, which supports clinicians in deciding whether entering into a shared care agreement is appropriate for an individual patient. The GMC guidance is clear that shared care agreements are voluntary, and that a general practitioner cannot be mandated to enter a shared care agreement and may decline requests on clinical or capacity grounds.

If a shared care arrangement cannot be put in place after the treatment has been initiated, the responsibility for continued prescribing falls upon the specialist clinician, and this applies to both National Health Service and private medical care.

If a patient receives a treatment privately which subsequently becomes available on the NHS, they should discuss arrangements for transferring or sharing care with their NHS clinician.

The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan: Fit for the Future, encourages the shift from hospital to community. This includes bringing diagnostic services closer to patients’ homes and improving access to timely testing in community settings. Integrated care boards (ICBs) will be integral to this shift as independent sector providers are commissioned by local ICBs, which deliver services to meet the specific health needs of their local population.

The plan also committed to a new commissioning framework for ICBs. The new strategic commissioning role is a continuous evidence-based process for ICBs to plan, purchase, monitor, and evaluate services over the longer term, and with this, improve population health, reduce health inequalities, and improve equitable access to consistently high-quality healthcare.

NHS England undertook an extensive market engagement in early 2026 to gain an understanding of the ways that the independent sector can support the National Health Service to increase diagnostic service capacity and productivity, including for mobile diagnostic services and those in community settings.

This insight is underpinning work to explore whether all relevant NHS procurement frameworks can be included in an easily accessible system. The work aims to facilitate a consistent and straightforward procurement approach, while being dynamic to enable new suppliers to join at any time.

Of the 157 Statement of Control audits of private parking companies carried out by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), 156 presented a low risk in respect of the handling, storage and processing of vehicle keeper data, demonstrating that appropriate controls were in place and consistently applied.

One audit identified a medium level of risk, indicating a limited level of concern. The DVLA worked directly with the company concerned to address the areas of non-compliance and ensure that appropriate remedial action was taken to reduce and mitigate the identified risks.

Of the 203 Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) evidence-based transactional audits undertaken, 65 identified areas of non-compliance with DVLA requirements.

GIAA audit findings represent a point-in-time assessment based on the information and evidence available during the audit. In many cases, evidence that was not available at the time of the audit will subsequently be provided to the DVLA demonstrating compliance with requirements.

Where non-compliance is identified, companies are required to provide appropriate assurances and evidence demonstrating that corrective and remedial actions have been implemented before the matter is considered resolved.

Almost 50 organisations responded to the Department’s market engagement questionnaire, including contractors, equity investors, lenders and other interested parties. The Department held a series of one-to-one and roundtable discussions with delivery capable organisations as part of the market engagement exercise.

This engagement demonstrated strong market interest in the Department’s private finance proposals. However, given the commercially sensitive nature of the information, the Department is unable to disclose how many respondents indicated that they may wish to participate in any future procurement.

In accordance with the Better Regulation Framework the private parking Impact Assessment will undergo independent scrutiny by the Regulatory Policy Committee before the government takes its final decisions on the Code.

The maximum parking cap and debt recovery fee were subject to consultation in 2025 and the government response will be published in parallel to the new Code being laid in Parliament in autumn 2026.

Details of Ministers' and Permanent Secretaries' meetings with external individuals and organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK. Details of meetings with Senior Civil Servants are recorded in our transparency database, which is published at GOV.UK.

The Department for Work and Pensions has published management information on the number of claimants referred to and who attended the Jobcentre Plus Midlife MoT group sessions since the launch of the policy in January 2023 to June 2025. See “Jobcentre Plus Midlife MOT Group Sessions, January 2023 to June 2025”. Table 1 below provides a yearly breakdown of these figures. Providing data beyond June 2025 would exceed the cost limits in answering Parliamentary Questions.

Table 1 – Number of referrals and attendees to JCP Midlife MoT group sessions

Table 2 below shows an age breakdown of the volumes of individuals referred to and who attended a JCP Midlife MOT group session during January 2023 to June 2025. Providing data beyond June 2025 and by individual year would exceed the cost limits in answering Parliamentary Questions.

Table 2 Age group breakdown of referrals and starts to JCP Midlife MoT group sessions, January 2023 to June 25

The DWP Midlife MOT website and the JCP Midlife MOT group sessions cover similar topics but are not directly comparable in terms of content. Figures for the two policies are as follows. From January 2024 to June 2025 there have been 85,142 individuals referred to and 64,105 individuals who have attended a Jobcentre Plus Midlife MoT group session.

Figures for the number of visitors to the DWP Midlife MoT website have been published as part of the evaluation of the DWP Midlife MoT website, see “Evaluation evidence from policies aimed at claimants aged 50 plus”. This report provides figures from Nov 2023 to March 2026. During this period the website was accessed by users 59,968 times by a total of 38,554 individuals. The evaluation did not collect any data on whether visits to the DWP Midlife MOT website influenced users’ behaviour. Providing further data on the JCP Midlife MoT group sessions and the DWP Midlife MoT website would exceed the costs limits for answering Parliamentary Questions.

DWP has published an evaluation of the Private Sector Midlife MOT scheme. See “Private Sector Midlife MOT Pilots qualitative research interim findings”. Low employer and participant uptake resulted in the pilots concluding early.

Where recovery of a commercial debt involves an overseas person or entity subject to UK sanctions, businesses must ensure that any action taken complies with UK sanctions law. In some circumstances, businesses may require a licence from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, where financial sanctions are engaged, or from the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation where trade sanctions activity falls within its remit.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) audit framework ensures that customers, including private parking companies, have appropriate internal controls in place to protect the data they request.

Evidence based transactional checks are also conducted by the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) on DVLA’s behalf to ensure that customers such as private parking companies can demonstrate that they have reasonable cause for requesting the data from DVLA.

Since July 2024, the DVLA has undertaken 157 audits of private parking companies through its statements of control audits framework. Over the same period GIAA has carried out 203 evidence based transactional audits of private parking companies on DVLA’s behalf.