Education

Pruned hard, the civil service will be lost without new skills.

Failure to properly communicate the increase in university tuition fees to £9,000 a year has already caused a large drop in student numbers and may also affect applications this year, Professor Les Ebdon, director of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) has told Civil Service World.

To encourage poorer and ethnic minority youngsters to consider a career in the civil service, the government has introduced new internships. Tim Fish reports on efforts to ensure Whitehall’s high-flyers are less uniformly white.

A special educational needs teacher considers realistic ambitions, unfair criticisms, and how the EBacc might affect non-academic children.

A leaked review of the Department for Education (DfE) sets out plans to cut about 1000 jobs, introduce a project team-based structure, focus work on “ministerial priorities” and radically reduce office space.

Never mind the NAO; ministers too hate a risk gone wrong

The MOD must store institutional knowledge in its armoury

As the Parliament’s halfway point looms, Tim Fish and Ben Willis examine the Cabinet Office’s progress against the tasks it was set in May 2010 as part of the Coalition’s Programme for Government.

A plea for sensible policy-making – and more cash

Legal Services Commission chief Matthew Coats has a reputation for carrying problematic services through political storms. Matt Ross asks him about organisational reform, service quality – and the looming cuts to legal aid

CBI director-general John Cridland writes (CSW p4, 12 April 2012) that the government has made little progress with its public service reforms over the past nine months. Those working in health and education witnessing major changes being pushed through might beg to differ, as might the civil servants trying to make sense of proposals from ministers for the ‘right to challenge’, ‘right to provide’ and now the ‘right to choose’.