Leadership

The Civil Service Commission won’t reform the appointment process for permanent secretaries without the backing of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC), first civil service commissioner Sir David Normington has told CSW.

Given the rhetoric surrounding the shift to the modern workplace and the importance of centring technology around the users rather than the producers, why has progress stagnated?

How can organisations allow employees to use their own devices to access corporate information securely, within parameters set by management?

AECOM’s Associate Director of Sustainability, Michael Henderson, considers the environmental and economic benefits of effective water management in urban areas.

Sir Paul Jenkins has spent his time as Treasury solicitor creating a shared legal service, and tackling discrimination. As this very unusual barrister retires, he gives Matt Ross his final, divergent verdicts on the progress in both fields

The Public Accounts Committee chair sits right at the heart of Westminster, with the power to examine public spending across government. But as Margaret Hodge tells Matt Ross, she’s always felt like an outsider

Universal Credit has been stymied by confused accountability and a “very, very poor set of decisions,” Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge has told CSW.

The prime minister should be able to pick permanent secretaries from a list of good candidates, argues Guy Lodge of the IPPR

Even small constitutional changes can have big implications

Jil Matheson, the national statistician, head of the Government Statistical Service chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority, is to retire this summer, it has recently been announced.

The Public Administration Select Committee wants the creation of an independent commission into the civil service. The PM has so far given a firm ‘no’ – but its chair, Bernard Jenkin, won’t let up. Joshua Chambers meets him

Sue Owen might be enjoying more evenings out as the new permanent secretary at DCMS, but her days are spent demonstrating and improving the value of culture, media and sport to the UK. Suzannah Brecknell meets her

Mark Lowcock

Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development

Permanent secretaries’ tenure is too short and the high turnover is sometimes to blame when “things go wrong”, according to former cabinet secretary Lord Butler, who also warned that civil servants “aren’t encouraged to speak truth to power”.

Three-quarters of former secretaries of state surveyed by Civil Service World support the calls for a commission to consider how the civil service should develop and reform.

Prime minister David Cameron has called on civil servants to “talk truth to power and tell it like it is” in order to improve policy.

David Thomas (pictured), commerical director at HMRC and a crown representative, will leave government in mid-December. He resigned his post in September.

Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has intervened in a bid to end the political briefings against work and pensions permanent secretary Robert Devereux.

The civil service must “significantly” improve its ability to understand company accounts if it is to make effective use of open-book contracts, according to government chief operating officer Stephen Kelly and chief procurement officer Bill Crothers.

The new Home Office permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, arrived in Marsham Street soon after having worked in Afghanistan. He tells Joshua Chambers how he’s using his experience to turn the embattled department around.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has created a new director general-level role, in an effort to rebalance the department’s workload.

Sharon White, currently director general for public services, has been appointed as the second permanent secretary at HM Treasury.

There is a "shortage of project management skills" in the Department for Transport (DfT), according to Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

A group of King’s College academics have launched a draft code of practice for the appointment and management of government ‘tsars’, arguing that the lack of an existing framework leads to failed appointments and wasted public funds.