Education

The UK has long had a strong space industry but, until recently, government support for it was small-scale and fragmented. David Parker, UK Space Agency chief executive, tells Joshua Chambers how things have changed.

Civil servants believe their employers failed to manage talent effectively during their redundancy programmes, a CSW survey has found, with the result that many talented and highly-skilled individuals left the civil service whilst poor performers were allowed to remain.

The number of civil servants taking courses with the government's new training provider, Civil Service Learning (CSL), has increased from 40,000 to 400,000 in the past year, it was revealed today.

Outgunned on salaries by the private sector, the civil service often struggles to recruit and retain world-class talent. Stuart Watson attends a CSW round table on how to bring top employees into Whitehall – and keep them there.

Very few jobs these days can be undertaken without any qualifications or tuition – but if you’re running the country, you may not even receive an induction. Joshua Chambers reports on the prospects for ministerial training.

The Cabinet Office has created a joint venture company to commercialise government’s portfolio of ‘Best Management Practice’ training tools and services.

The British Library’s vast collection is about to get much bigger. Suzannah Brecknell meets its new chief executive, Roly Keating, to find out how the world’s second largest library is reinventing itself for the digital age

All government departments will be required to deliver the goals outlined in the civil service Capabilities Plan released last week, Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has told CSW.

Chris Wormald, the education department’s permanent secretary, is leading organisational changes that go well beyond the Civil Service Reform Plan. Matt Ross quizzes him on the outcomes of his "zero-based review".

The long-awaited Capabilities Plan has now emerged, outlining how civil service skills and abilities are to be strengthened. Now the work begins: Colin Marrs explains how officials will be required to put flesh on its bones.

Civil Service Learning is struggling to reverse a terrible trend.

In 2010, a CSW survey revealed civil servants’ feelings about their training. Three years on, post budget cuts and Civil Service Learning, we’ve asked them again – with quite different results. Suzannah Brecknell reports.