Economy

The UK economy is stumbling back into growth, but still remains over three per cent smaller than it was before the global financial crisis in 2008. Real wages have declined in this period – the worse squeeze in living standards for a generation.

An independent national infrastructure commission should be set up to evaluate the UK’s long-term infrastructure needs, according to a report published today by Sir John Armitt, former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority and ex-chief executive of Network Rail.

Jane Platt is chief executive of NS&I, Britain’s venerable state-owned savings bank. She talks to Joshua Chambers about keeping rival financial institutions sweet, diversity in the City, and the future for arm’s-length bodies.

As chief executive of the Shareholder Executive, Mark Russell is responsible for overseeing the running of more than 20 government-owned businesses. Joshua Chambers meets him to discuss transparency, pay and privatisation

CSW sets out the Spending Review’s main implications for each department below, covering the changes in their resource and capital DEL, their administration budgets, and explaining the main policy and operational challenges facing civil servants.

The coalition’s Green Investment Bank has been tasked with boosting private investment in the green economy – a high-potential sector constrained by limited finance. Winnie Agbonlahor meets chief executive Shaun Kingsbury.

Battered departmental administration budgets received a further pounding in today’s 2015-16 spending round, with the Home Office (HO), Cabinet Office (CO) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) seeing punishing settlements that will accelerate civil service cuts as we approach the end of the Parliament.

The Labour party would consider merging “management and bureaucracy” across government departments, agencies and other public services as part of a “zero based spending review” if it wins power at the next election, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday.

Aeronautics are a good example of a new form of partnership between government and industry. Suzannah Brecknell looks at the levers which can enable Whitehall and business to effectively work togeth

The Cabinet Office has established a new structure, chaired by cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, to improve government’s long term planning, Civil Service World can reveal.

Government must plan ahead for long-term social, economic and environmental change, so it employs ‘horizon scanners’ to predict likely scenarios. Joshua Chambers looks at what the future holds for this unusual profession.

Under the coalition’s open data agenda, the trading funds are being encouraged to release more information without charge. But if they give away their biggest asset for free, how can they earn a living? Winnie Agbonlahor reports.

The annual drama of the Budget is a dysfunctional relic and should be scrapped, says Julian McCrae. Ministers and civil servants have bigger – and more nourishing – fish to fry.

The civil service pay cap will continue for an extra year, limiting pay increases to an average of one per cent per year until 2015-16, and the government will also seek to end automatic pay rises for all civil servants, chancellor George Osborne announced in his Budget last week.

The civil service pay cap will continue for an extra year, and the government will also reform automatic pay rises for all civil servants, chancellor George Osborne announced in his budget today.

While America’s Californian rappers battle their East Coast rivals, transport chief Philip Rutnam has his own West Coast struggle: the effort to restore his department’s reputation after its rail franchise failure. Matt Ross meets him

Most central government departments will have to cut spending by two per cent over the next two years in order to fund a £2.5bn investment in infrastructure, it has been reported.

The business department’s permanent secretary Martin Donnelly tells Suzannah Brecknell how his department is working to bring businesses and government together, creating strategies designed to kick start Britain's economic growth

The Treasury’s financial accounts are “impenetrable” and the department is neglecting its duty to prevent poor spending decisions, according to a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published last Friday.

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the Treasury permanent secretary, last week praised the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the National Audit Office (NAO) for their work in holding departments to account despite the “discomfort” of his fellow permanent secretaries.

The government says that boosting our high-tech industries is key to getting the country’s economy moving again. But do its deeds match its words? Jess Bowie examines Whitehall’s work to support innovative businesses.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt

UK Open Data Adviser; Chairman and Co-Founder of the Open Data Institute