Commercial

As Home Office prepares to take on full responsibility for fire and rescue services from the Department for Communities and Local Government, MPs on the Public Accounts Committee say Whitehall must do more to understand the local implications of budget cuts

Latest Labour Market Outlook from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) finds public sector employers expecting to award a lower basic pay increase than when last surveyed – but wage growth also weakening in the private sector

MP Meg Hillier tells CSW that public confidence in the way HM Revenue and Customs reaches settlement deals with large corporations will be an issue until there is greater transparency

Transport department has improved its ability to let rail franchises, MPs say, but still lacks the capability to manage them, and does not have a “coherent strategic vision” for the rail system

Rolling out text alerts, sorting out "crap" government IT, cleaning up data, and trying to recruit skilled people when the money's tight — there's plenty going on in the world of government digital, as Matt Foster found at the Government Digital Service's annual gathering

Latest Outsourcing Index by firm arvato finds 26% year-on-year rise in government spending on outsourcing

Treasury committee questions why internal auditors did not raise concerns about government funding of the now-collapsed Kids Company youth charity

As Cabinet Office launches new government-wide set of commercial standards, civil service chief executive John Manzoni talks up recruitment of contract experts – and explains tricky balancing act of supporting departments "in an intelligent, helpful, and yet challenging way"

National Audit Office report finds City of London Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Confederation of British Industry, and Deloitte topping list of providers of hospitality and gifts to senior officials — and calls for better central scrutiny of transparency returns

Reducing reliance on consultants and temps will require "much more fundamental workforce transformation" than seen so far, civil service chief John Manzoni tells MPs. But he says the organisation is "on the road" to addressing the problem

Report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee says that final round of funding to the beleaguered youth charity — subject to a warning from then-Cabinet Office perm sec Richard Heaton — "should not have been authorised"

FDA and Prospect urge the Senior Salaries Review Body to back a front-loaded 4% payrise and warn of "divisive" attempts to boost the pay of only a limited number of specialists