Civil Service Reform

Crown Commercial Service's director of complex transactions to temporarily serve as chief commercial officer

HM Revenue and Customs chief executive says low staff morale is not damaging productivity – but acknowledges more work to do to make officials feel engaged with wider department

Matt Hancock says new team will bring together officials and ministers to focus on digital reform

Cross-government SDSR to be unveiled two days before the Spending Review

Combined central and local government outsourcing spend highest since early 2012, according to new research

Garry Graham – taking over from Leslie Manasseh at the union for specialists and managers – calls for "cool appraisal" of performance management by ministers

Decentralisation will not be a "panacea" for improved public services, think tank warns

When Army 2020 was announced in 2012, it represented one of the biggest structural reforms to the British Army in decades. A key plank of the scheme – itself part of the larger Future Force 2020 programme – has been to cut the number of regulars from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2018, and to make up the shortfall with reservists. The programme’s recruitment problems have been well publicised in the past, but, in 2015, is it any closer to ‘mission accomplished’? Colin Marrs reports

Tech industry group says some initiatives designed to open up markets are poorly understood, but Crown Commercial Service chief Sally Collier insists Whitehall is "changing the way it does business" with smaller firms

Chatham House urges protection of FCO – while officials reportedly say they are "confident" of a good outcome at the Spending Review

National Audit Office asked by MPs to check whether Spending Review cuts are taking account of the environment

Equalities and Human Rights Commission warns that gaps in public data are leaving marginalised groups – including transgender people, gypsies and travellers, and bullied children – under the radar