Sir Jeremy Heywood
Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service
How did you tackle the biggest challenges facing the civil service in 2014?
Helping the government to rebalance the economy, and to reduce the continuing large fiscal deficit, remains the key domestic policy challenge facing the civil service and indeed the country. Overall 2014 has been a better year on the economy, with the UK on course to be the fastest growing economy in the G7. Led by the Treasury and BIS, all departments have played their part in becoming ‘growth departments’, for example by cutting unnecessary red tape and supporting growth and exports in their sectors.
The Scottish referendum was arguably the most important single moment for the country this year, placing unique and unprecedented demands on the civil service. For the first time we had one civil service serving two governments with very different visions of Scotland’s constitutional future. I believe we rose to the challenge with great professionalism. However, the work didn’t end on 18 September. We now need to deliver the cross-party commitments on further devolution and decentralisation.
As an institution, the civil service itself has continued to make considerable progress in addressing our weaknesses and building on success. I am very proud of how much the civil service has achieved in the last year – 22 of the 25 digital exemplars are now live or in beta; stronger functional leadership is helping us to address our capability gaps in the key areas of commercial, contract management, digital and project management; and we are focusing hard on how we increase diversity in our senior talent pools. As the end of 2014 approaches, I’d like to use this opportunity to thank all civil servants for their professionalism, public service and sheer hard work in 2014.
What are your department’s priorities in the last months before the general election?
It is important that we remain focused on serving the government of the day and implementing the outstanding Coalition commitments with the determination demonstrated over the last five years. As of today we have delivered 344 of the 399 – a brilliant achievement. However, inevitably as we get closer to the election we will need to start planning for the next Parliament in order to enable the next administration to govern effectively from day one.
What’s your favourite Christmas Treat? And what makes you say: ‘Bah, humbug!’?
It’s great to just have a few days off with my family, following Santa on the GPS tracker on Christmas Eve and watching Man Utd win on Boxing Day.