Policy

MPs say DfE must not focus solely on hitting target as it overhauls the UK's apprenticeships system

National Audit Office report suggests DWP's "use of sanctions is linked as much to management priorities and local staff discretion as it is to claimants’ behaviour"

DIT officials say Whitehall has trebled its trade policy staff numbers since the referendum, and stress focus on training up existing staff rather than drafting in outsiders

Former education secretary calls for weekly naming and shaming of civil servants working on big projects, but union for senior officials says his intervention is "more about resurrecting his career as a columnist"

Just-released documents from former chancellor Geoffrey Howe’s tenure at Treasury reveal interest in dismantling NHS and social security bedrocks

Researchers warn about lack of transparency over evidence behind policies announced in big fiscal events

 Former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake urges government to "pause, review, take stock of what it has in front of it and then revisit the question of capacity"

UK Statistics Authority says DfE's now-deleted grammar schools claim was based on incomparable data

Exclusive: Ian Watmore tells CSW he is "absolutely convinced" that the current crop of ministers "wants to preserve Northcote-Travelyan" model of an impartial civil service, as he sets out focus on diversity, skills and leadership

Mark Leftly reports on growing support among parliament's influential select committees to let MPs "blackball" ministers' choices for key public sector jobs

Manzoni and Gummer convene refreshed advisory panel as government reiterates commitment to channel 33% of procurement spend through SMEs

 House of Lords Constitution Committee session told that wealth of academic data is often ignored

"We’re forever doing accountability ex-post," says the former cabinet secretary, as MPs kick off their new inquiry into the future of the civil service

Independence fears prompt U-turn as Children and Social Work Bill enters report stage in House of Lords

Exclusive: David Cameron’s policy guru and former Cabinet Office minister warns agains "jargon-ridden, non-sensical, useless, distracting management speak" and argues for better treatment of civil servants to compensate for pay restraints

"We do not require wider education legislation in this session to make progress on our ambitious education agenda," says education secretary

Public Accounts Committee urges Cabinet Office to boost departments’ oversight of quangos – and share accountability good practice more widely

National Institute of Economic and Social Research study, commissioned by the government, finds “no significant or systematic impact” of the programme, as the Department for Communities and Local Government says it has learned lessons from its first phase

Foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s first select committee grilling provides laughs and helpful sketches of flags, but little policy insight

Think-tank raises eyebrow at PM’s capacity to turn her Conservative Party Conference pledges into reality against backdrop of further belt-tightening and Brexit uncertainty

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Institute for Government, and the Chartered Institute of Taxation say the UK's tax system suffers from "too little sense of direction, consultation or evaluation"

Ed Balls, Jacqui Smith and Jack Straw are among the latest former ministers to lift the lid on their dealings with the civil service. Suzannah Brecknell reports

PCS union says plan to move organisation employing more than 4,000 civil servants into the private sector appears to have been "quietly dropped" after it fails to appear in the new Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Treasury resistance hampered early planning, while over-stretched senior officials failed to spot warning signs that the project to overhaul benefits was failing, according to an in-depth report published by the Institute for Government