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But if the Treasury gives way, civil servants could do the job.

One of the two remaining consortia bidding to run the Ministry of Defence agency Defence Equipment & Support has pulled out of the competition, leaving chief of defence materiel Bernard Gray’s plans for a ‘Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated’ organisation in disarray.

The government should send more civil servants to the European Commission (EC) as part of their regular career paths, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has said.

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 civil service suffers from a shortage of delivery skills and a culture that venerates policymaking over organisational improvement, outgoing Home Office director-general Rob Whiteman has said in an interview with CSW.

Errors by the Ministry of Justice and by security firm G4S have resulted in a new prison suffering serious problems in its opening year, a report from the prison’s independent monitoring board (IMB) has revealed.

The communities department’s approach to coordinating firefighters has been criticised by MPs for leaving too much planning in the hands of local teams.

Public service mutuals have been given too much “soft finance” – non-repayable grants – as they spin out of local and central government, which has “lowered the bar” and allowed “some mutuals to spin out without developing the right capabilities and plans,” according to a report published by the Cabinet Office today.

The civil service isn't able to build its contract management skills quickly enough to keep up with the pace of outsourcing, a report published today warns.

The Cabinet Office approved Department for Transport requests to hire external advisers for its West Coast Mainline franchise project, the government’s chief procurement officer Bill Crothers said earlier this month, so the spending controls didn’t contribute to the scheme’s collapse.

The National Audit Office (NAO) will “start doing comparative reports of similar activities in departments” from next year, comptroller and auditor general Amyas Morse has said.