Ahead of next week’s Sprint 18 event, GDS director general Kevin Cunnington outlines the organisation’s focus areas for the coming months, and its achievements of the past two years

Many internationally lauded ideas for improving how government work have come from the UK – but even when they are copied many in the civil service view central reforming units like the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit to the Government Digital Service as irritants. This should change, says Andrew Greenway

There can often be a daunting space between policy development and delivery in government – a space where policy ideas can be undermined as they move from one team to another. Here are Infrastructure and Projects Authority chief executive Tony Meggs’s top tips for closing it

It is easy for politicians to blame immigration officers and other civil servants tasked with implementing immigration rules and regulations. But to do so unfairly distracts from the all but inevitable outcome of reducing the number of staff properly employed and trained to enforce immigration law

Companies will fail, but that doesn’t mean we must abandon outsourcing entirely – it’s a matter of picking the right circumstances, says Bronwen Maddox

The sacking of Nick Hardwick as chair of the Parole Board has raised questions about the future of the body – including how ministers will be able to find a successor, says Suzannah Brecknell

The UK government needs to set out proposals – not just send negotiators – to make progress on post-Brexit trade, says the Institute for Government’s Jill Rutter

This year, the UK hosted the first International Public Fraud Symposiom. Mark Cheeseman, deputy director, public sector fraud at the Cabinet Office, explains how the event came about, and what his team learnt from their international colleagues

David Gauke’s dismissal of the head of the Parole Board following the John Worboys case raises questions about how the relationship between the board and the department will work in future

The departure of the director of public prosecutions is just one example where public servants have faced scrutiny from a hostile media. It is time ministers had the courage to challenge unwarranted media attacks

Transferring data policy to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is a welcome move, but the government needs to be clear about what it wants to do with all this data

It’s too early to say if shared services are coming of age or another false dawn. But I’d probably keep the champagne in the fridge for now

Civil servants have a vital role in government so they must be honest enough to face up to their own fears and failings, says Claire Foster Gilbert

Whitehall accountability is focused on blame and governed by convention – but improvements are possible

In Patrick Wright’s Foreign Office memoirs Tom Fletcher finds moments that resonate across the decades – and some that don’t

How far are the massive changes brought on by Brexit accelerating the reversal of 1990s decentralisation, and will they usher in a more centralised machinery of government in the long term?

The Treasury solicitor from 2006 to 2014 died on Monday 26 February. His successor at the Government Legal Department and the former cabinet secretary pay tribute to this exemplary civil servant and friend

The UK Statistics Authority has updated its framework to ensure all public servants behave with integrity when handling data

Officials continue to serve the public interest despite DExEU’s Mr Lover Lover and a dodgy double act in the Commons

The creation of the Department for International Trade as a new department has allowed us to look afresh at how to put inclusion at the heart of our work

Jeremy Richardson explains how the British policy-making style has been steadily shifting away from governance and towards government, and why Brexit should usher in a return to the former

Parliament’s senior learning projects officer Claire Bogue describes the work behind a recently launched Massive Open Online Course on select committees

Every day staff see the pressure on defence caused by pay restraint, delays to procurement orders and purchasing of cheaper foreign equipment to cut costs