Leadership

Senior managers should make time to meet apprentices who have joined the civil service under a new Apprenticeship Fast Track scheme, the head of the civil service has said.

Senior civil servants can no longer expect to remain out of the public eye, according to NHS England chief executive Sir David Nicholson, who has faced attacks from newspapers and patient groups over his involvement in the crisis at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.

Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service, has rejected claims that structures within Whitehall are preventing open debates about government policy, and emphasised the need for senior leaders to encourage an “open culture in their department where people feel able to raise issues and concerns about progress”.

Civil service structures are preventing open debates about government policy, and stopping senior officials speaking truth to power, two select committee chairs have told Civil Service World.

Challenge must be encouraged, no matter what the project.

An independent national infrastructure commission should be set up to evaluate the UK’s long-term infrastructure needs, according to a report published today by Sir John Armitt, former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority and ex-chief executive of Network Rail.

Sue Owen, currently director general of strategy at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), has been appointed the new permanent secretary of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Oliver Morley, currently chief executive of the National Archives, has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

PASC chair Bernard Jenkin is highly critical of aspects of the civil service – but he’s sympathetic to civil servants themselves, and earlier this month an audience of officials gave his arguments a warm reception. Matt Ross reports.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude will today announce that secretaries of  state are to be allowed to expand their private offices, mainly by appointing  policy advisers on short-term civil service contracts. He is also expected to  say that he does not intend to push for further changes to the permanent secretary appointments process this year.

The civil service has increased its productivity and begun to reform, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood told an audience at Civil Service Live yesterday, but it will have to redouble its efforts to help the country deal with its huge economic and fiscal challenges.

Over the last year the chairman of Standard Life, Gerry Grimstone, has been visiting Ministry of Defence offices to meet and speak with civil servants from across the department. It's not a very personal bid for defence civil servants to reconsider their savings choices, but part of his role as the department's lead non-executive director. Grimstone, in common with many other departmental non-executive directors, wants to improve communications between boards and civil servants.

New DECC chief Stephen Lovegrove has, to his evident relief, missed all the big battles over the direction of our energy policies – but he does face huge challenges in putting those policies into practice. Matt Ross meets him

Companies run by two lead departmental non-executive directors (Neds) have been publicly accused of serious wrongdoing.

The government needs a chief financial officer (CFO) “who is clearly and visibly responsible for ensuring that spending decisions are made on the basis of financial analysis and for measuring the outcomes in terms of value for money and performance management,” Rebecca McCaffry, innovation specialist at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), 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".

Since Derek Jones began working on Welsh governance, the country’s administration has largely shifted from London to Cardiff. And now more devolution is on the way, Wales’s new perm sec tells Suzannah Brecknell

The collapse of the West Coast Mainline franchising process won’t deter the Department for Transport (DfT) from taking necessary risks, the department’s permanent secretary has promised in an interview with CSW.

The Civil Service Commission can help civil servants flag complaints about breaches of the Civil Service Code. First civil service commissioner, Sir David Normington, explains how his organisation has just launched an 'Open Week' to encourage civil servants to ask questions and engage with them:

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell used the second part of his Radio 4 documentary on Tuesday, In Defence of Bureaucracy, to call for the retention of an impartial civil service, and to argue that the “occasionally intemperate tone” taken by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has “not helped” the “unusually strained” relationship between ministers and civil servants.

The National Security Council has improved Whitehall’s planning and coordination. But it’s been busiest where the bullets have been flying, and there are doubts over its scrutiny of less obvious dangers. Stuart Watson reports.

The business department’s permanent secretary Martin Donnelly tells Suzannah Brecknell how his department is working to bring businesses and government together, creating strategies designed to kick start Britain's economic growth

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell is to present two programmes on Radio 4 in a bid to defend the work of the civil service.

The level of public trust in civil servants has risen dramatically over the last 30 years, a poll by the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute has found, while politicians are firmly ensconsed at the foot of the table.