News

The government has found cross-departmental working more “problematic” than improving coordination at the centre, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 7 July.​

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which was this year abolished by home secretary Theresa May, was “never going to work”, its former chief Rob Whiteman told the Public Administration Select Committee on 17 June.

An official responsible for an IT contracting error which cost the Ministry of Defence (MoD) £70m is no longer working for the department, its permanent secretary Jon Thompson told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 16 June​.

Sir Bob Kerslake spoke of his commitment to public service today, as he told an audience of civil servants about his retirement next year.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg today told an audience of civil servants that ministers have a “duty to acknowledge and respect your role as the backbone of the public infrastructure, that has to survive the ebb and flow as governments come and go.”

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell has welcomed the government’s plan to recombine the jobs of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, telling Radio 4’s Today programme this morning that “having one person doing both jobs is a big step forward.”

The Committee on Standards in Public Life thinks it knows how to halt the seemingly endless scandals about outsourcing. Report by Colin Marrs. Illustration by John Levers

Sir Bob Kerslake (pictured) is stepping down from his role as head of the civil service in the autumn, and is to retire as permanent secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) at the end of February 2015, it has been announced today.

Special units at the centre of government “should be used sparingly and cannot be a substitute for increasing core capacity at the centre”, an Institute for Government (IfG) report published on 9 July has warned.

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Government spending on outsourcing contracts rose by 23% to £1.2bn between 2012 and 2013, bringing the two-year total to £2.3bn, while expenditure in most other sectors fell by between 1% and 20%, according to analysis of public sector transactions carried out by the Institute for Government (IfG).

The Education Funding Agency is responsible for handing out £54bn of taxpayers’ money every year, funding every state school place in the country. Winnie Agbonlahor meets its chief executive, Peter Lauener

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) needs to get “to grips with effective oversight to improve public confidence in the system,” the Public Accounts Committee warned in a report.

Education can help improve social equality, says Alison Wride – but only if the universities radically change their approach to recruiting and teaching students

A civil servant in our courts service says we must invest money in order to save it

The former UK Border Agency (UKBA) was doomed to fail due to its sheer scale and constant media attention, its former chief executive Rob Whiteman has said.

This newspaper was established as Whitehall & Westminster World in 2004; and since I became editor six years ago, we’ve published about two million words on events in the civil service. There has been an awful lot to write about. The first coalition and the biggest recession in decades have presented huge policy challenges; sweeping budget cuts have prompted major organisational and personnel reforms; and changes in communications, working practices and service delivery have crystalised into civil service-wide agendas such as digital by default and open data. 

Sir Jonathan Stephens has moved to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) to take up his new job as permanent secretary. 

Civil service job cuts and hikes in employees’ pension contributions saved the government almost £4.7bn during 2013-14 – providing a third of its overall efficiency savings and showing a rise of £1.3bn on 2012-13, according to new figures.

The Civil Service Competency Framework should be updated to require all staff to have minimum skills in critical thinking, quantitative analysis and digital skills, according to think tank Policy Exchange.

Three top civil servants have written to Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge, strongly rejecting calls made by her committee for the centre of government to take a stronger lead.

 

The international trade treaties currently being negotiated between the USA and EU and around the Pacific area threaten the kind of bail-outs that have rescued Greece, Ireland, Portugal and other EU countries, according to Ngaire Woods, dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.