Legal

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.”

Ministers should not have a stronger role in appointing their permanent secretary, the civil service commissioners have said, criticising a key element of the Civil Service Reform Plan.

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.

The relationship between ministers and the civil service must improve and both groups’ accountability must be clarified, Dame Gillian Morgan, the retiring permanent secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government, has told CSW.

The recent series of “damaging and distracting” attacks on the civil service by unnamed ministers and their advisers has ended with the publication of the Civil Service Reform Plan, the UK’s top civil servants told audiences at Civil Service Live (CSL) last week.

If only they’d do the same with elected police commissioners

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.

Departments must think of the long-term when setting out budgets as part of a Spending Review, the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has said in a report published yesterday.

The Treasury must take ownership of the new system of accountability that will develop as a result of public service reforms, the Public Accounts Committee has said.

The repeated funding scandals must be tackled at their roots, says Matt Ross

Departmental expenditure limits (DEL) will need to fall by 3.8 per cent per year in the first two years of the next Parliament – even more than the current annual cuts of 2.3 per cent – unless there are deeper cuts to annual managed expenditure (AME) budgets, chancellor George Osborne said in his Budget last week.

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell has told the House of Commons Justice Committee that a ‘safe house’ should be established where ministers can speak freely without fear of a Freedom of Information request.