Leadership

The Defence Select Committee chair has criticised the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) prioritising management skills over local expertise in its overseas staff, and expressed scepticism over the UK’s approach to developing strategy. 

Mark Serwotka was re-elected for a fourth term as general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union on 23 October. 

Atam Verdi, Director at the property regeneration consultancy, gives and outside perspective of the civil service

As the election looms, CSW puts six questions to deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg

Top flight chief executives have sung the praises of both the management approach and the professionalism of permanent secretaries in a Whitehall and Industry Group (WIG) released yesterday.

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.

The prime minister will be able to pick permanent secretaries out of a candidate shortlist from December this year, under new rules announced today – with the first competition to be held under the new process that to replace Sir Bob Kerslake in February as permanent secretary of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The civil service has not gone far enough in appointing women to senior positions, the Treasury’s second permanent secretary Sharon White told a conference audience last month.

This year’s civil service Diversity and Equality Award winners have been named at a ceremony in Petty France today.

In our monthly feature focussing on people who have crossed organisational and sectoral boundaries, Mark Gibson talks about his move from the then-Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) to the Whitehall and Industry Group

John Manzoni, the chief executive of the Major Projects Authority, has been named as the new chief executive of the civil service.

Journalist and historian Peter Hennessy meets former chief of the defence staff General Sir David Richards to discuss Whitehall’s internal wars, and the need for truly strategic thinking in Whitehall

By chance, two service delivery heavyweights have shared a single message. Ministers and officials alike should listen up

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

HM Passport Office will be abolished and its operations absorbed by the Home Office from 1 October, it has been announced today, and the organisation’s chief executive Paul Pugh will be replaced by a newly-appointed director general.

There is “unfinished business” in civil service reform, former head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake said yesterday – including devolving powers away from Whitehall, and breaking down departmental structures. 

Civil servants achieve so much for the public good, argues Dave Penman, but rarely get the praise they deserve: their leaders should sing their praises more loudly – even if it gets the critics irate

Helen Edwards left a career in frontline social work and charity management for a job on Whitehall; now she's the DCLG's deputy permanent secretary. She tells Matt Ross about pursuing change in service delivery, councils, and her own department. Photo by Mark Weeks

Former head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake has said his biggest regret is that the government didn’t publish a civil service diversity plan more quickly.

Oliver Robbins, director-general, civil service, has spoken out in defence of the government’s new Talent Action Plan – designed to promote diversity in the civil service – after a blog about its publication attracted 130 comments on the civil service website.

Leaders across the civil service are wrestling with change management. Here’s how to rise to the challenge

Senior civil servants often “don’t know what’s going on” with contracts held by their departments and thus spot problems too late, Joshua Reddaway, the National Audit Office’s director for commercial and contracting, has warned.

Paul Pugh, chief executive of the Passport Office, has been accused of a “complete management failure” by the Home Affairs Select Committee. In a report published today, the committee calls for the office to be abolished and its functions to be returned to the direct control of ministers.

A monthly interview with people who've crossed organisational and sectoral boundaries to join a new working world.