Economy

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.