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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.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said that the civil service is moving away from an “old-fashioned” culture of “presenteeism”, and argued that remote working can increase productivity.
Secretaries of state are to be given direct input into senior civil service appraisals so that ministers don’t suspect civil servants of feeling they can “pick and choose” which coalition policies they implement, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has told Civil Service World.
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.
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
Having toured Whitehall applying her unique brand of troubleshooting to various social issues, Louise Casey is now leading a flagship payment-by-results scheme involving all her former employers. Joshua Chambers meets her
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.
The Civil Service Reform Plan encourages civil servants to move between departments and out of government, giving themselves the breadth of experience to excel. Joshua Chambers and Suzannah Brecknell report
Heywood and Richard Heaton set out the challenges facing the UK economy. Joshua Chambers reports
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.
The FDA trade union “flatly rejects” proposals to introduce performance-related pay for the senior civil service, the union’s general secretary Dave Penman has told CSW.
The recent series of “damaging and distracting” attacks on the civil service by unnamed ministers and their advisers has ended with the publication of the Civil Service Reform Plan, the UK’s top civil servants told audiences at Civil Service Live (CSL) last week.
HMRC should introduce a deliberate error into the taxation system so that it overclaims taxes and has to repay them at the end of the year, Dr David Halpern, the head of the government’s Behavioural Insights Team, has suggested.
In an increasingly open society, even MI6 has to change the way it operates – and at Civil Service Live, the Secret Intelligence Service’s head Sir John Sawers made a rare public appearance. Joshua Chambers reports
Parliamentary efforts to hold government more closely to account include reforming how British intelligence agencies are overseen. Joshua Chambers reports on a committee walking the line between light and shade
The former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir Richard Mottram, has come out against the idea that the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) could hold public hearings with the heads of Britain’s intelligence agencies.
The Cabinet Office wants civil servants to leave the public sector as employee-owned contractors to government, but a CSW survey reveals that few are interested – and explains why. Joshua Chambers digs into the results.
Here, government is generally seen as a benevolent institution with limited powers. Joshua Chambers has visited a place that demonstrates how, without democratic control, government can be chillingly, ruthlessly effective
Just 16 per cent of civil servants are interested in exploring the idea of launching a ‘mutual’ organisation, with 69 per cent dismissing the idea, a CSW survey has found.
Over half of all civil servants do not believe that their skills are being fully utilised, according to exclusive research conducted by CSW.
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In the past, government campaigns have sometimes resembled a Tower of Babel, with dozens of voices talking about their own ideas. Joshua Chambers examines the emerging plans to bring coherence to communications
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As the government prepares its civil service reform plans, CSW has carried out a major survey of civil servants – testing views both on how Whitehall is changing, and how it should change. Joshua Chambers reports.
The government’s civil service reform plan will increase the “corporate management” of the senior civil service and allow departments to better understand the abilities of employees in other organisations when recruiting, Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has told CSW.
Civil servants in the Department of Health (DH) have raised concerns over its approach to policymaking, its risk-assessment skills and its effectiveness at consulting stakeholders, an exclusive opinion poll for CSW has found.
Civil servants support moves to increase the transparency of government and to devolve powers down to local government and communities, but are strongly opposed to outsourcing delivery to the private and voluntary sectors, an exclusive poll by CSW has found.
Dave Penman, the current deputy general secretary of the FDA, will become the trade union’s next general secretary later this year, it was announced yesterday.
The government is keen to give away public data in an effort to stimulate private business. But Ordnance Survey chief executive Vanessa Lawrence tells Joshua Chambers that it must also guard the golden egg-laying goose
Getting the right metrics to drive effective markets is no easy task, but it’s key to payment by results. It can also be a dry topic – which may be why Joshua Chambers begins his investigation with Pacman and Jurassic Park.
The Department for International Development (DfID) has the greatest capability to meet its delivery challenges while the Department of Health (DH) is least well-equipped to do so, the latest round of capability reviews suggest.
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The government wants to legislate to give citizens a right to choose their public service provider, it said last month in an update to its Open Public Services white paper.
The release of official statistics to ministers, special advisers and civil servants before their official publication is largely unnecessary and causes the public to mistrust the figures, Andrew Dilnot, the new head of the UK Statistics Authority, has told Civil Service World.
Computer hackers have threatened to repeatedly attack government websites, following cyber-attacks that caused the Home Office website to crash last weekend.
The last chair of the UK Statistics Authority was a fierce defender of the impartial and objective use of statistics. His replacement, Andrew Dilnot, tells Joshua Chambers how he intends to operate in this sensitive and important role.