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The Government Property Unit needs “greater clout” across Whitehall so that it can achieve bigger savings from the sale of government real estate, the Public Accounts Committee said last week.

Central government has shown the smallest increase in self-reported data breaches compared to other parts of the public and private sector, according to figures obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by data security firm Imation Corp.

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Twice before, the Public Administration Select Committee has called for reforms to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments – but to little avail. Now it’s having another go: Colin Marrs reports on its latest assault.

Government agency NS&I is hoping to become a provider of services for other departments under the next phase of the government’s shared services programme, an NS&I manager has said.

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Richard Heaton, the first parliamentary counsel, has been appointed as a part-time permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, and started the job on Monday. He replaces Melanie Dawes, who took on the role in a temporary capacity following the sudden departure of Ian Watmore in June after only six months in the job.

The coalition has outsourced policy research on sharpening civil servants’ accountability to ministers because it would be “very odd to ask the civil service itself to do that” and might prompt accusations that the advice is “self-serving”, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has told Civil Service World.

The next spending review is likely to encourage departments to pool budgets to tackle cross-cutting challenges, the cabinet secretary and Cabinet Office minister have said.

The current rate of turnover of permanent secretaries is “problematic”, the government’s lead non-executive director Lord Browne has warned in an exclusive interview with Civil Service World. Browne’s comments come in a period that has seen the surprise departures of two permanent secretaries and a host of other senior civil servants.

Moira Wallace, the permanent secretary of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) resigned last month, days before a critical report by the Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECC) was published. The report, which examined her department’s flagship Energy Bill, said that continued rows between DECC and the Treasury have made the policy “unworkable.”

The Ministry of Defence says it’s balanced its budget, and can now afford to honour all its spending commitments. But as Joshua Chambers reports, this has come at a cost both to personnel and to equipment programmes.

The Ministry of Defence wants its staff to use social media – but there’s always a danger that unguarded use will create a security risk. Suzannah Brecknell reports on how the MoD can both have its virtual cake, and eat it.

For Foreign Office chief Simon Fraser, his relationships around Whitehall are as crucial as those with Washington. His main mission is to increase trade, he tells Matt Ross, and that means working with a host of other departments

Soon after the 2010 election, the coalition beefed up departmental boards and recruited a set of powerful non-executive directors. Joshua Chambers meets Lord Browne, the ‘lead NED’ reforming Whitehall from the inside

The government’s chief information officer, Andy Nelson, has accepted charges made in a new report on the government’s ICT strategy, which says key targets in the document are likely to be missed.

Some 80 per cent of civil servants believe that replacing IT systems will be an important step on the way to producing ‘more for less’, a CSW survey has found.

The FDA Union has pledged to fight any proposals that threaten the political neutrality of the civil service.

The relationship between ministers and the civil service must improve and both groups’ accountability must be clarified, Dame Gillian Morgan, the retiring permanent secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government, has told CSW.

A senior Foreign Office official has warned that the UK’s economic standing in the world could be damaged if the British public ever voted to leave the European Union.