Education

Permanent secretaries have less than a month to deliver work to boost diversity in their departments, the government’s new diversity champion Sir Simon Fraser revealed at this year’s Civil Service Diversity & Equality Awards.

Victor Adebowale may be a peer of the realm, but his ideas for public service reform – built on 30 years’ experience in housing and social care – challenge established thinking. Winnie Agbonlahor meets him

An MBA has long opened doors in the business world – but the qualification is just as valuable to civil servants

A total of 200 18-21-year-olds are this week starting the government’s civil service Fast Track apprenticeship scheme.

More than half of permanent secretaries attended Oxbridge, compared to less than 1% of the public as a whole, according to a report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission which criticises the lack of diversity among the people running the country.

When university fees tripled in the coalition’s early days, there were dire warnings of the effect on social mobility and student numbers. But as Suzannah Brecknell reports, the real dangers lay elsewhere.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “should urgently invest in its operational, technical and commercial skills,” a report by the National Audit Office has found.

The Education Funding Agency is responsible for handing out £54bn of taxpayers’ money every year, funding every state school place in the country. Winnie Agbonlahor meets its chief executive, Peter Lauener

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) needs to get “to grips with effective oversight to improve public confidence in the system,” the Public Accounts Committee warned in a report.

Education can help improve social equality, says Alison Wride – but only if the universities radically change their approach to recruiting and teaching students

Departments need more flexibility on pay so that civil service organisations don’t feel the need for “bureaucratic reorganisations” designed to escape pay controls and enable them to recruit skilled staff, the Public Accounts Committee has said.

Audit and governance arrangements for free schools are “not yet effective,” according to a Public Accounts Committee report published last week.