Legal

The former cabinet secretaries Lords Butler and Turnbull have warned about the risks involved in mooted reforms under which ministers would appoint their own private office teams, CSW can reveal.

The information commissioner, Christopher Graham, has slammed the “crazy” system of funding for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), and claimed that the body is in danger of becoming overloaded with work.

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the Treasury permanent secretary, last week praised the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the National Audit Office (NAO) for their work in holding departments to account despite the “discomfort” of his fellow permanent secretaries.

It is the duty of civil servants to challenge weak policy ideas, the director general of civil service reform, Katherine Kerswell, has told Civil Service World – even if officials risk being seen as “obstructive”.

The ‘bureaucrat bashers’ are only making things worse

Finance professionals believe that the senior management teams of their organisations have a “deep understanding” or are “aware of the importance” of the finance function, a CSW survey has found.

The Ministry of Defence is struggling to build a financial management system that determines a “single version of the financial truth” and there is a “high risk to delivery” of the department’s strategy for setting out clear management information (MI), according to the Defence Review Annual Report published yesterday by Lord Levene.

The commission created to investigate the possible replacement of the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights has failed to reach unanimous conclusions, it was announced yesterday.

The prime minister has intervened to block the appointment of David Kennedy, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, as the new permanent secretary of the Department for Energy and Climate Change.