News

Patient records are the lifeblood of the health service. Joshua Chambers examines the analytics techniques that can improve public health and the operation of the NHS – and the sensitivities around privacy and data protection.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is investigating whether there is enough competition in the public sector IT market. 

The government has launched a simplified document classification system, and is introducing a single building pass for all civil servants to make it easier for officials to work together.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is considering whether to re-investigate the Home Office for potentially breaching the Data Protection Act, CSW understands.

Education secretary Michael Gove’s policies are “entirely derived from his own experience,” according to Lord Baker, Margaret Thatcher’s education secretary. He also said that Thatcher’s views on education were “not worth listening to” and that David Cameron is “not that interested in education, frankly”.

A group of King’s College academics have launched a draft code of practice for the appointment and management of government ‘tsars’, arguing that the lack of an existing framework leads to failed appointments and wasted public funds.

The proportion of women in the senior civil service (SCS) has risen in the last year, but government has failed to meet its own target, set in a 2008 diversity strategy, to have 39% women in the SCS by March 2013.

The prime minister should put pressure on all government departments to support community budgets (CBs), Clive Betts, chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, has told Civil Service World.

The government is likely to miss its legally-binding target of ending child poverty by 2020, a report by Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, has warned.

Housing associations should be “championing” the Homes and Communities Agency’s plans to charge them fees to support the HCA’s regulatory functions, its chief executive Andy Rose has told CSW.

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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has appointed Kevin Cunnington (pictured below), former global head of online for Vodafone, as its new director general for digital transformation.

Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, has backed proposals that could see his body scrutinise spending commitments made by parties in the run-up to elections. However, PAC chair Margaret Hodge has questioned the OBR’s independence.

Our sun warms the planet and gives us life, but it also threatens to blitz our IT, communications and power systems. Joshua Chambers investigates the danger of solar storms, and talks to the officials working to counter the risks

Government’s “default setting” should be to “publish the evidence and the data on which policy is based,” according to Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude – but departments should not be “limited” to introducing policies with a strong evidence base.

The civil service’s finance specialists should be overseen by a head of profession based in the Treasury, whilst permanent secretaries should have stronger powers and the “constitutional protection” to push back against poor spending decisions, the new chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) writes in today’s CSW.

The Treasury must prevent the pre-release of any Budget information, the Treasury select committee said in a report published today, as this practice allows the government to “manage the message of Budgets and Autumn Statements to an unacceptable degree”.

The government must not water down the UK’s long-term climate change targets in next year’s review of the EU carbon budget covering 2023-2027, the Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee has warned.

Like every government department, the MoD must enact widespread job cuts – but its task is made uniquely difficult by the political sensitivities around armed forces redundancies. Winnie Agbonlahor investigates

There will be no further cuts to the civil service at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), but the Army could suffer more redundancies, according to Jon Thompson, the ministry’s permanent secretary.

By Damian McBride

Biteback Publishing, £20

The former prime ministerial press secretaries Bernard Ingham and Alastair Campbell weren’t strangers to the dark political arts, but Damian McBride – Gordon Brown’s press secretary – has perhaps more opprobrium than any of his predecessors. His memoir, Power Trip, has just been released, and provides some of the reasons why.

Senior managers should make time to meet apprentices who have joined the civil service under a new Apprenticeship Fast Track scheme, the head of the civil service has said.

Mark Bowman has been appointed the new director general of international finance at the Treasury. He re-joins the department from the Department for International Development and will replace Michael Ellam, who announced his decision to leave the Civil Service in July 2013.