This week’s interviewee is an addiction manager, working for a local authority to provide help and support to adults with drug and alcohol problems

Elected to the Commons in 1966 and a veteran of eight ministerial jobs, Michael Heseltine brought down one prime minister and became the deputy of the next. The businessman politician talks to Matt Ross

Operational research may not be the best-known profession inside the civil service, but its head Tony O’Connor says that this cadre of analysts creates many benefits for policymaking. 

Amid the welter of anecdotes, advertisements and media reporting, what do civil servants actually think of major government technology suppliers? Matthew O’Toole details the results of an intriguing survey on IT in the civil service.

A G-cloud and a government applications store are the next big ideas in government IT, but cost savings will  depend on buy-in from the wider public sector in order to create economies of scale. Ruth Keeling reports

Jill Kirby, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, blames big government for huge waste, ineffective policy, weakening the private and voluntary sectors – and, ultimately, even the recession. Matt Ross meets her

Stephen Lovegrove, the former banker running the Shareholder Executive, must dispose of high-value government assets such as the Channel Tunnel rail link. He tells Matthew O’Toole it will take expertise, but also good timing

For Communities and Local Government permanent secretary Peter Housden, the challenges are combating the recession and developing localism. He tells Matt Ross that centralised targets and inspections are on the way out

Should civil servants use Twitter at work? Absolutely, online services minister Jim Knight tells Ruth Keeling. The government’s IT and its attitudes must both be brought up to date so that services can change with the times

Both major parties have pledged war on the proliferating numbers of public bodies; in the current economic climate, their future looks bleak. Matthew O’Toole reports from a sobering conference on the prospects for quangos

European Commission directives may be intended to create common results across Europe, but Ruth Keeling discovers that their transposition into national law varies widely – and there’s simply no data on enforcement.

Transport permanent secretary Robert Devereux has been a policymaker all his life – and now he leads the profession. He tells Matthew O’Toole that policymakers must listen to the frontline

Matthew Rycroft, who heads up EU policy at the foreign office, hopes to move the union on from a decade of institutional wrangling to tackle strategic issues. He tells Matthew O’Toole why it’s time to focus on the big picture

Sir Leigh Lewis, permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, is not a noisy or aggressive individual. Nonetheless, he tells Matt Ross, he’s at the forefront of a revolution underway in the civil service

The government has been moving in the right direction on welfare and benefits reform, shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May tells Matt Ross; it just hasn’t been doing so very cleverly, or very quickly

Richard Reeves is keen to stress that his think-tank, Demos, is no New Labour ‘poodle’, and has been striving to engage with the Tories. He tells Matthew O’Toole why it’s worth listening to – and why Whitehall might resist 

The Food and Environment Research Agency was launched with dreams of commercial development – into the teeth of the financial crisis. Chief executive Andrew Belton tells Ruth Keeling that he remains optimistic

A new report from influential think-tank the Institute for Government recommends a stronger, strategy-setting centre of government. Many see the logic, but wonder how it could be achieved. Matthew O’Toole reports.

In a world of cross-cutting issues, says Eleanor Goodison, our system of department-specific select committees has too narrow a focus. But despite calls for committees to take a wider view, the prospects of reform are limited

The government committed all Whitehall departments to paying invoices within 10 days in order to help business cash flow during the recession. Matthew O’Toole monitors progress, and asks if the rest of the public sector is keeping up

The recently launched Government of the Future Centre promises to bring together public sector reformers from all over Europe. Antoine Brugidou, one of the key partners, explains the centre’s work to Matthew O’Toole

As Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor and then foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe was responsible for some of the era’s most contentious policies. He talks to Matthew O’Toole about governing the country in recessionary times

Only death and taxes are certain, they say. But Dave Hartnett tells Ruth Keeling that the profession isn’t that predictable 

As director general of the Attorney General’s Office, Peter Fish plays a key role in the complex structure of top Whitehall lawyers. He tells Matthew O’Toole why his boss’s ancient role is still so important in the 21st century