News

"One of our most important collective responsibilities is to improve the diversity of our senior leadership," says cabinet secretary, as new senior network launched

“All we’re asking is for the Met Office to be able to allocate what it needs to fund staff by industry standards,” Prospect’s Gordon Hutchinson tells CSW, as hundreds of Met Office staff set up picket lines

Civil service chief executive John Manzoni talks to Suzannah Brecknell about leadership, transforming government and building relationships with the private sector

Sue Higgins, executive leader at the National Audit Office, explains why the public spending watchdog decided to look into the relationship between ministers and perm secs – and why the NAO believes the incentives for accounting officers to prioritise value for money are still too weak

Thompson to succeed Lin Homer as chief executive, while tax specialist Edward Troup to chair the board's executive committee

Public Accounts Committee criticises lack of transparency over HM Revenue and Customs' £130m, ten-year tax deal with Google – but says department has taken "a step in the right direction" in pledging reform of penalty regime

Peter Wilkinson, director of rail passenger services at the DfT, comes under fire after reportedly telling commuters they had "got to break" industrial action over changes to train drivers' terms

Pilling – who served at the Prison Service, Department of Health, and in the top job at the NIO – has been drafted in to check up on the post-Leveson press regulator set up by industry

The legal team at the government-owned British Business Bank has brought together public and private sector expertise to create a new organisation with a challenging mandate – to boost lending to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. Shanika Amarasekara, general counsel for the bank, shares her team's experience 

Cabinet secretary writes to perm secs to confirm that pro-Brexit ministers will not have access to civil service briefings on the referendum

Microsoft takes a look at how technology can be used to improve the patient experience

MPs say closure of BIS Sheffield will result in "loss of vital expertise, shrink the civil service talent pool and reduce the variety of experiences that contribute to policy-making"

After better-than-expected Spending Review settlement, Foreign Office perm sec says new review to make FCO "more flexible" will not be ignored

National Audit Office report says Cabinet Office's Fraud, Error and Debt team is "growing into a centre of expertise" – but warns departmental data is "often variable and not sufficient" to keep tabs on the true scale of public sector fraud

BT Infinity Lab competition launched with a £15,000 prize.

Powerful Economic and Domestic Secretariat to get a new deputy director to help departments focus on longer-term trends and the impact of technology

Treasury committee says 2014 intervention by then-chief secretary Danny Alexander “gives the appearance of a minister trying to lean on the OBR”

"I think we continued to do the ‘to departments’ [approach] for perhaps a little longer than we could or should have," GDS boss says

Former Border Force head Tony Smith sets out scale of the challenge Brexit would pose to management of Britain's borders

IfG's deputy director Julian McCrae says long-awaited new plans are "little more than a laundry list of nice to haves"

Ministers say new, single documents bringing together spending totals and broad reform plans will "enable the public to see how government is delivering"

"Single, clear" plans for the next four years of change in departments expected imminently

Prospect members at the Met Office to stage latest walk-out over pay

The civil service is completely dependent on the professionalism of its workforce – but is there enough recognition of the effect that distressing decisions can have on officials?