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Brian Moore left his job as director general of the UK Border Force yesterday, having announced his departure at a Home Affairs Committee hearing in the morning. He has been succeeded on an interim basis by Tony Smith, a senior director at the UK Border Agency (UKBA) who was responsible for the delivery of its Olympic programme.

Cuts to civilian staff at the MoD are falling more heavily on the senior ranks, making the department less top-heavy. Tim Fish reports on the progress of its downsizing efforts compared to those of other departments

The coalition government doesn’t value civil servants, who are increasingly incentivised to pursue higher financial rewards elsewhere, former Ministry of Defence permanent secretary Sir Richard Mottram has said.

The Treasury (HMT) has instructed departments to put interim staff employed for longer than six months and earning more than £220 a day onto the departmental payroll, or to gain assurances that the contractors are paying the appropriate amount of tax and national insurance.

The coalition has appointed more tsars per year than the Labour government did, research by King’s College London has revealed.

The government’s Civil Service Reform Plan states: “Given ministers’ direct accountability to Parliament for the performance of their departments and for the implementation of their policy priorities, we believe they should have a stronger role in the recruitment of a permanent secretary.”

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said that the civil service is moving away from an “old-fashioned” culture of “presenteeism”, and argued that remote working can increase productivity.

Leading politicians are engaged in a “conspiracy” to prevent reforms to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) chair Bernard Jenkin has told CSW.

Moira Wallace, the permanent secretary of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) resigned last month, days before a critical report by the Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECC) was published. The report, which examined her department’s flagship Energy Bill, said that continued rows between DECC and the Treasury have made the policy “unworkable.”

Secretaries of state are to be given direct input into senior civil service appraisals so that ministers don’t suspect civil servants of feeling they can “pick and choose” which coalition policies they implement, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has told Civil Service World.

The changes to the Fast Stream outlined in the Civil Service Reform Plan last week are a “brave experiment,” Mike Emmott from the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development has told CSW.

The FDA trade union “flatly rejects” proposals to introduce performance-related pay for the senior civil service, the union’s general secretary Dave Penman has told CSW.

The new job of director general for civil service reform has been awarded on an interim basis to Andrew Campbell from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Civil Service World has learned.

Permanent secretaries will be covered by the new rules on performance set out in the Civil Service Reform Plan, Sharon White, director general of public spending in the Treasury, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday. This means that the poorest performing 10 per cent of permanent secretaries will be identified and given extra support and training.

The government’s reform plans fall well short of the aim of creating a more professional civil service, says Dai Hudd

The Civil Service Benevolent Fund has rebranded, been given a new name, and switched the focus of its services to concentrate on information and advice rather than financial assistance.

A solicitor representing David Owen, a civil servant suing the Treasury for unfair dismissal, has said that officials are threatening to ignore the judge’s decision should he rule in Owen’s favour.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) failed to plan out the skills it will need in the long term before cutting its civilian and military workforces, according a report published by the Public Accounts Committee on Friday.

The government’s civil service reform plan will increase the “corporate management” of the senior civil service and allow departments to better understand the abilities of employees in other organisations when recruiting, Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has told CSW.

Dave Penman, the current deputy general secretary of the FDA, will become the trade union’s next general secretary later this year, it was announced yesterday.

Civil servants in the PCS Union will strike on 10 May over reforms to public sector pensions, the trade union announced last week. They will be joined by NHS workers from the Unite trade union, it said.