Policy

The civil service must fight for Britain’s economic interests in Europe, even in the absence of a coherent government EU policy, the former chief executive of UK Trade & Investment has said.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) and the business department (BIS) will establish a cross-government digital capability and skills programme to help citizens use digital services.

The Ministry of Defence’s Defence, Equipment and Support (DE&S) division was this month turned into an arm’s-length body and given an exemption from Treasury salary controls and civil service-wide promotion criteria.

A Labour government would set targets for the proportion of people from BME and working class backgrounds joining the Fast Stream, as part of a drive to improve diversity across the civil service.

The Civil Service Commission won’t reform the appointment process for permanent secretaries without the backing of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC), first civil service commissioner Sir David Normington has told CSW.

Managerial politics only works in an era of economic growth, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Ashdown has warned, and the current political “vacuum where those great principles and debates should lie” leaves space for some “ugly ideas” to enter the mainstream.

Baroness Martha Lane Fox is stepping down from her role as the government’s digital champion, after more than three years in the job.

The Home Affairs select committee is today calling on the home secretary to rethink her decision to ban khat – a plant which has a stimulant effect when chewed – and warns that the decision has “not been taken on the basis of evidence or consultation”.

The civil service must “significantly” improve its ability to understand company accounts if it is to make effective use of open-book contracts, according to government chief operating officer Stephen Kelly and chief procurement officer Bill Crothers.

The Civil Service Commission has published the rules under which individuals can be appointed as civil servants providing support in Extended Ministerial Offices (EMOs). The rules, welcomed by the FDA trade union, set out a number of safeguards designed to ensure that appointments do not compromise the independence of the civil service.

The Cabinet was deliberately not kept as well-informed as the prime minister, defence secretary and foreign secretary in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, former cabinet secretary Lord Butler has said.

A group of King’s College academics have launched a draft code of practice for the appointment and management of government ‘tsars’, arguing that the lack of an existing framework leads to failed appointments and wasted public funds.

The government has unveiled a 12-point action plan to beef up the civil service policy profession.

Civil service structures are preventing open debates about government policy, and stopping senior officials speaking truth to power, two select committee chairs have told Civil Service World.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude will today announce that secretaries of  state are to be allowed to expand their private offices, mainly by appointing  policy advisers on short-term civil service contracts. He is also expected to  say that he does not intend to push for further changes to the permanent secretary appointments process this year.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) officials believe the department will be criticised by Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq War over the poor state of its record-keeping, according to its 2012-13 departmental improvement plan published last month.

Parliament and government should agree a Code of Legislative Standards to improve the quality of laws produced at Westminster, according to a report published yesterday by the Political and Constitutional Reform committee.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change is set to become the second Whitehall body to buy in policy development work from outside government, its permanent secretary Stephen Lovegrove has revealed in an interview with CSW.

Let’s hope ministers don’t put it to their blind eye

The Cabinet Office has established a new structure, chaired by cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, to improve government’s long term planning, Civil Service World can reveal.

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

Whitehall experts have backed former cabinet secretary Lord Butler in calling for all departments to appoint historical advisers, CSW can reveal.

Ministers & officials must also put those lessons into practice.

On February 21, a seminar was held in the Foreign Office to mark the publication of a book by the head of the FCO Historical Section, Gill Bennett, called ‘Six Moments of Crisis’. The book discusses six major foreign policy decisions taken since the Second World War. These were the decision to send British troops to Korea in 1950; the Suez invasion; the first application to join the European Economic Community; the withdrawal of British forces from East of Suez; the expulsion of 109 Soviet diplomats; and the sending of the Task Force to recover the Falklands.