Leadership

Acting permanent secretary poised to take on £340,000-a-year City of London role

CSW readers react to Labour's perm sec quotas plan – and the Cabinet Office's proposal to find out more about the backgrounds of Fast Stream applicants

New £160,000-a-year "Continuous Improvement Director" asked to track progress against commercial improvement plans departments have agreed with the Cabinet Office

Whitehall's HR directors asked to collect data on public interest concerns for the first time – with the majority of officials choosing to come forward anonymously

Select committees do valuable work, but the relentless grandstanding by some of their members damages public services and does nothing to hold government to account

Microsoft makes the case for local councils to move to the cloud

The former Energy and Climate Change chief scientist, who died earlier this year, taught his department how to do policymaking without the hot air – by making the process data-led, iterative and open

Think tank focusing on effectivess of government names Prospect editor as new director following departure of Peter Riddell

Public Accounts Committee says system is “bedevilled by long standing poor performance” and urges the Ministry of Justice to do more to understand likely impact of cutting resources

In an era of protracted belt-tightening in government, how can departments collaborate on policy design to save money and improve outcomes for the citizen? A recent CSW round table explored these issues, as Colin Marrs reports

Civil Service Board backs move to let key commercial staff work directly for the centre of government, potentially sitting outside of departmental pay and grading

Microsoft looks at the digital infrastructure that allows cities to prosper