Any reforms to the permanent secretary appointments process should meet three tests, first civil service commissioner Sir David Normington has said today in an article published in CSW.

The efforts of Companies House (CH) to tackle fraud should be based on “strengthening the current model rather than radically changing company law”, its chief executive has told CSW, to ensure that anti-fraud work doesn’t weaken transparency in business information or create additional burdens on business.

Politicians should not use cabinet secretaries as arbiters to judge disputed issues, Lord Armstrong has warned in a video interview produced by Queen Mary University of London.

The government is likely to implement a further set of civil service reforms soon, the head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake has told CSW, as it pursues “unfinished business” that didn’t make it into last year’s Civil Service Reform Plan (CSRP).

Permanent secretary appointment processes should result in ministers being given the right to choose their favourite candidate from a shortlist, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said last week – and Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, appeared to go still further in her response.

Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood and head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake have told MPs they do not believe there is a need for a royal commission to examine the future of the civil service and its relationship with ministers and Parliament.

Companies run by two lead departmental non-executive directors (Neds) have been publicly accused of serious wrongdoing.

Private offices should be boosted by letting secretaries of state recruit experienced policy and implementation advisers, says Akash Paun

There is a new dynamic in the relationship between select committees and government departments. The Wright reforms agreed in 2010 – including the election of committee chairs by the House, and of committee members by their parties – have changed the way committees work and what they expect of their departments, while the public profiles of committees have been raised.

Former home and foreign secretary Jack Straw has called for secretaries of state to have the right to choose from a shortlist of approved candidates during the process of appointing permanent secretaries and agency chief executives. The appeal echoes arguments made by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude last year, though Maude subsequently stopped pushing for reform after the Civil Service Commission expressed its opposition.

The annual drama of the Budget is a dysfunctional relic and should be scrapped, says Julian McCrae. Ministers and civil servants have bigger – and more nourishing – fish to fry.

Private offices should be expanded, with extra advisers appointed jointly by ministers and the permanent secretary, the Institute for Government (IfG) argued in a report published yesterday. It also called for the appointment of chiefs of staff – ministerial appointees – to oversee the running of private offices.