News

Geoffrey Lyons reviews Nick Spencer’s The Mighty and the Almighty: How Political Leaders do God – a collection of essays on how current and former heads of state engage with faith and religion

Commission urges focus on investment away from London and the South East, but warns of “dilution” of know-how witnessed by civil service departments

New appointments in the civil service, UK politics, and public affairs, via our colleagues at Dods People

The outgoing permanent secretary of the Department for International Trade breaks bread with Jess Bowie

David Gauke tells MPs fewer than 100 of the planned 750 Jobcentre redundancies will be frontline roles

Controversial element of so-called ‘Project Fear’ assumed no policy response to a leave vote, says NAO

Education secretary appoints former lawyer to helm of new higher education regulator

Former No. 10 policy adviser Daniel Korski tells Sam Trendall about his plans to create an armada of UK tech players to compete with the best California has to offer – and why he needed to leave Whitehall to do so

Some closure-threatened Jobcentres win reprieve in estates reorganisation, but new sites are earmarked to shut

Study finds Whitehall is the world’s most effective civil service for generating policy, but falls down ranking in areas like financial management and digital services

Rupert McNeil said professions will play a key role in ensuring the civil service can offer pay packages that attract and retain talented people

New group will help “put in place the foundations” for recovery, says communities secretary

Proportion of BAME staff in top grades has fallen since 2016, though number of women in these posts is rising

PCS union reiterates call for return to national bargaining across the entire civil service

Public appointments watchdog flags likelihood that Brexit will lead to a rise in public appointments and cautions government is already struggling to attract high quality, diverse candidates

Civil servants in Northern Ireland have been taking spending decisions for more than three months following deadlocked talks to create a new power-sharing executive

Renaming the ministry the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport acknowledges how its responsibilities have changed, says minister

New appointments in the civil service, UK politics, and public affairs, via our colleagues at Dods People

NAO says the department’s efforts to tackle online fraud are ‘not proportionate to the threat’

Plan would allow pay review bodies to recommend increases above 1%, which means it might not apply across the civil service

As the new apprenticeships system gets into full swing, Suzannah Brecknell meets Peter Lauener, the man charged with setting up the institute which will put employers front and centre

Plan would have formed part of government drive to encourage a cashless society

Institute for Government says High Speed 1 rail link and Thames Tideway tunnel are among projects where government may have made the wrong investment decision

If Theresa May wants to inspire confidence after a bruising election campaign, she should embrace openness and accountability