News

When you don’t have the time to go on long holidays, planning the perfect weekend get-away becomes of crucial importance: the ideal spot should be far away, but easy to reach; warm, but not too hot; big enough to be entertaining, but not overwhelmingly; and affordable, without being dangerously deprived.

The head of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government is a fan of the British civil service – but it’s being battered by some heavyweight global forces, she says, and must learn a new fighting style. Matt Ross meets her

An inquiry needs to be held into the political process and the flaws in our system of government, two former cabinet secretaries have told Civil Service World. Their call comes after some politicians and other key figures have called for an inquiry into the future of the civil service.

In recent times, new delivery challenges and rising tensions between officials and politicians have led to calls for an inquiry into the civil service. Joshua Chambers asks how Whitehall can ensure it has the right tools for the job 

Once small and cohesive, today’s cities, including those in the UK, have become large and complex entities. In fact, London, despite being the smallest region in terms of area, occupying 1,600 square kilometres (sq km), less than 1% of the total area of the UK, has a population of over 8 million. This is a larger population today than all but the top four countries at the turn of the last century. So, with this being the case, how can governments maintain meaningful engagement with citizens, businesses, employees and other agencies?

The international development department does great work, says Diana Good – but must improve staff training in order to get better still

The Public Accounts Committee has warned of “evident risks” arising from the scale and pace of planned reforms to the probation system. 

John Pullinger, the incoming chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority, has warned that the poor use of data and targets risks “skewing the way we understand the world” rather than improving it.

Marks & Spencer chair Robert Swannell (pictured) has been made chair of the Advisory Board of the Shareholder Executive. Swannell has been a non-executive director there since January 2014, and will take up the new role in September.

CSW reviews Olivelli

Once, civil servants hacked away at unfashionable railways in favour of cars and aeroplanes – but now trains are once again seen as transports of the future. Joshua Chambers meets High Speed 2 chief executive Alison Munro

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is a full-blown and unapologetic regulator in an era of deregulation. Winnie Agbonlahor hears its chief executive, Dr Ian Hudson, explain the value of its work

Garden cities have long been a fertile idea in public policy. First planned over a century ago, they flowered in Hertfordshire in the ‘20s – and now this perennial concept is set to bear fruit once again. Colin Marrs reports

The government should conduct a comprehensive review of its interventions in Afghanistan in 2001, the Commons’ Defence Committee said in a report on Tuesday. This should encompass not just military operations, but all the UK’s work under the NATO and UN missions.

NHS Property Services was set up as a limited company to manage the NHS property portfolio without a formal business case being produced to support that decision, the National Audit Office has found in a report published this month.

Politicians needs to stop unfairly criticising civil servants and start appreciating their work, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA trade union, has said today. 

Departments need more flexibility on pay so that civil service organisations don’t feel the need for “bureaucratic reorganisations” designed to escape pay controls and enable them to recruit skilled staff, the Public Accounts Committee has said.

Highways Agency chief Graham Dalton is wrong to argue that his organisation should become a company, argues Mark Dollar

Civil servants in the Department of Health tried to prevent a doctor from raising safety concerns directly with ministers, The Sunday Times reported this weekend.

Audit and governance arrangements for free schools are “not yet effective,” according to a Public Accounts Committee report published last week.

A teacher whose school has become an academy enjoys new freedoms – but not from central reforms

There is no doubt that the innovative use of technology within the UK’s public sector is fast becoming paramount to civil servants’ ability to deliver positive outcomes. 

Project management may be as much art as science, but it’s not magic – yet government often fails to replicate the alchemy behind its biggest PPM successes. Winnie Agbonlahor reports back from a round table on the topic 

A lack of clarity on pre-election rules are causing officials to “do things on the sly for ministers”, according to the Institute for Government (IfG), which has this week published a report into the final year of the coalition government.