Operational Delivery

This week’s interviewee is a biomedical technician looking after ward-based medical equipment in an urban area hospital.

Challenge must be encouraged, no matter what the project.

The government must improve “basic housekeeping” of its published data to ensure that the public can assess its overall effectiveness, a report by the Institute for Government (IfG) says today.

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.

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).

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) should retain its current structure because it responded swiftly and retained public trust after the discovery in January that horsemeat was appearing in frozen food products sold as beef, the organisation’s chief executive, Catherine Brown, has told Civil Service World.

HMRC’s customer services operations have improved from their low point of 2010 but still represent poor value for money to the taxpayer, a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) concluded yesterday.

Education secretary Michael Gove has attacked the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the National Audit Office (NAO) as “forces of conservatism” that discourage risk-taking and innovation.

Five government departments will be required to provide clearer guidance and complaints procedures for staff keen to set up public service mutuals, under new proposals designed to maintain the momentum behind the government’s public service reform agenda.

Fraud is widespread at government contractors A4e and Working Links, their former head of audit, Eddie Hutchinson, has said.

The Department for International Development (DfID) has the greatest capability to meet its delivery challenges while the Department of Health (DH) is least well-equipped to do so, the latest round of capability reviews suggest.

Robert Devereux has defended plans to charge single parents for work carried out by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC).

Select committees are looking for a proper argument

Departmental select committee chairs have provided mixed reviews of the departments they scrutinise for a Civil Service World Special Report, which has found that 40 per cent of them are dissatisfied with departments’ responses to their reports.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has defended its report on the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Work Programme, after welfare minister Chris Grayling said that the NAO analysis was “partially based on guesswork.”

The incoming head of the civil service, Sir Bob Kerslake, has warned civil servants that in 2012 ministers will expect to agree and enact reforms across the civil service.

Sir Gus O'Donnell will meet with public accounts committee chair Margaret Hodge following an evidence session in which she raised concerns over the accountability of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).