Economy

Like many of our cities, the government’s policies on property and construction contain a mishmash of approaches and styles. Colin Marrs names this policy world’s up-and-coming neighbourhoods – and its troubled estates

One of the two remaining consortia bidding to run the Ministry of Defence agency Defence Equipment & Support has pulled out of the competition, leaving chief of defence materiel Bernard Gray’s plans for a ‘Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated’ organisation in disarray.

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.