Leadership

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.