Policy

All civil servants should be trained in design principles such as using prototypes and involving users to create solutions, according to a report published today by the Design Commission, an industry-led group that investigates how design could address public policy problems.

A new network of research centres providing independent evidence to inform decision making in key policy areas will help to improve policy making in the civil service, according to Will Cavendish, executive director of the Cabinet Office's implementation unit.

It is the duty of civil servants to challenge weak policy ideas, the director general of civil service reform, Katherine Kerswell, has told Civil Service World – even if officials risk being seen as “obstructive”.

Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, told the Public Administration Select Committee last week that he has written “six or seven” letters to departments complaining about the distortion of official statistics.

Government needs to set formal standards for making policy and drafting legislation, the Better Government Initiative (BGI) argues in a report published today.

Never mind the NAO; ministers too hate a risk gone wrong

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.

The Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team, or ‘nudge unit’, has secured its first overseas contract.

Civil servants should be prepared to see further significant changes to their accountability arrangements, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told CSW yesterday after he announced plans to publish permanent secretaries’ objectives online.

Civil servants should not be experts in any particular fields, but instead should be generalist administrators, Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin said in a speech at the Institute for Government on Monday.

The think tank contracted by the Cabinet Office to provide external policy advice on the future of civil service accountability has published research setting out its conclusions on the topic, CSW can reveal.

Civil servants are split over whether outsourcing policymaking is a good idea in principle, but a clear majority have concerns about implementation, exclusive research by CSW has revealed. The greatest concern is that ministers will commission policy work from favoured institutions, creating “unchallenged bias” in the policymaking process.

More than half – 56 per cent – of all senior civil servants and grade six and seven officials believe that the Freedom of Information Act sometimes prevents open and honest policy discussions, exclusive research by CSW has found.

The Justice Select Committee’s review of the Freedom of Information Act is “an opportunity missed to create more certainty around policy advice”, former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell has told CSW.

Exploitation of the vast quantities of subjective data from social media sites and internet forums offers Whitehall decision-makers new opportunities to fine-tune policy based on public opinion, experts told a civil service seminar yesterday.

Good ideas on policymaking meet risky ones on accountability

Civil servants in the Department of Health (DH) have raised concerns over its approach to policymaking, its risk-assessment skills and its effectiveness at consulting stakeholders, an exclusive opinion poll for CSW has found.

Civil servants support moves to increase the transparency of government and to devolve powers down to local government and communities, but are strongly opposed to outsourcing delivery to the private and voluntary sectors, an exclusive poll by CSW has found.

The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) is in competition with ministers’ special advisers, friends, think tanks and other groups, NICS permanent secretary Malcolm McKibbin has said, and must demonstrate to politicians that its advice is the highest quality if ministers “are to properly value our information and our service.”

Performance measurements will always be contested. Recently, Professor Nick Black of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine published a paper in The Lancet arguing that productivity in the NHS has increased in recent years. This conflicts with health secretary Andrew Lansley’s claim that it has fallen by 15 per cent. For some, such arguments demonstrate only that you can prove anything with statistics – but the fact that people disagree over how to measure something isn’t a good argument against measurement. In fact, the only way that we can estimate productivity is by proper measurement.

Public service targets still have a role to play in improving outcomes, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice has said.

Select committees are looking for a proper argument

When I joined the CSW team in June 2010, the Efficiency and Reform Group had just been created, the civil service had 43,000 more employees, and IT contract renegotiations were but a glint in Francis Maude’s eye. Since then the civil service has – while developing a brand new set of policies – experienced wholesale reforms in fields such as pensions, redundancy pay, training and HR, and the ERG has delivered £8.75bn of savings. Even if you don’t agree with everything that’s being done, the pace of change is impressive.