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The civil service has been too slow to improve the working conditions of staff, civil service leaders have admitted. Speaking at Civil Service Live last week, they pledged that much more will be achieved over the next year.

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.

A hospital doctor says government edicts and the fear of litigation are limiting medical staffs’ freedom to learn their trade and act in their patients’ best interests. Tom Barfield reports.

The Caxton Grill, housed in the newly refurbished four-star St Ermin’s Hotel by St James’s Park, has long offered refreshments to civil servants of the subterranean variety. MI6 and MI5 operatives met contacts here in the 1930s, and during World War II Winston Churchill ordered that the Special Operations Executive (now the SAS) be formed here. Ian Fleming used to work in St Ermin’s – as did traitors Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, the latter meeting his Soviet contact in the hotel bar.

Though their origins lie in military applications, drones are increasingly being used in a civilian context. Winnie Agbonlahor reports on how the public sector might capitalise on the opportunities around unmanned aircraft.

The government will do more to improve the workplace conditions of civil servants over the next year, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood pledged this week at Civil Service Live.

The civil service has increased its productivity and begun to reform, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood told an audience at Civil Service Live yesterday, but it will have to redouble its efforts to help the country deal with its huge economic and fiscal challenges.

As chief executive of the Shareholder Executive, Mark Russell is responsible for overseeing the running of more than 20 government-owned businesses. Joshua Chambers meets him to discuss transparency, pay and privatisation

Ordnance Survey and the Met Office should do more to support the open data agenda, according to Mark Russell, chief executive of the Shareholder Executive.

Weak civil service pay risks brain drain, warn top officials

The number of civil servants taking courses with the government's new training provider, Civil Service Learning (CSL), has increased from 40,000 to 400,000 in the past year, it was revealed today.

Benjamin Franklin once spoke of the perils of sacrificing precious liberty for a little temporary security. His words have a powerful resonance following the saga of state surveillance exposed in recent weeks.

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.

The Land Registry is making a data set that previously was paid-for available for free, as part of its open data programme, it has been announced today.

The delivery of “crucial” infrastructure projects is to be coordinated by "commercial experts" - not civil servants - Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury announced today, when setting out  the government’s £100bn infrastructure plan.

Bringing the UK Border Agency back under Home Office jurisdiction has involved more than cosmetic changes, the department’s permanent secretary has insisted.

CSW sets out the Spending Review’s main implications for each department below, covering the changes in their resource and capital DEL, their administration budgets, and explaining the main policy and operational challenges facing civil servants.

• A new unit has been set up in the Treasury to represent the public sector on the boards of Private Finance 2 (PF2) projects.

Jonathan Stephens, permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who’s due to leave the department at the end of July, was awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for public service in the Queen’s birthday honours list earlier this month.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL), which monitors the conduct of MPs and ministers, has had its budget slashed by £104,000 – from £504,000 in 2012-13, to £400,000 in 2013-14 – and its secretariat and members’ numbers cut.

Communications spending by government has been cut by £47m in 2013-14, the new annual communications plan reveals. The proposed budget is £237m, compared to just under £285m in 2012-13. In 2009-10, it was £532m.

The government must move faster in developing policy measures to help meet its greenhouse gas emission targets, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has warned in a report published today.

The Troubled Families scheme run by the Department for Communities and Local Government will be given an additional £200m for 2015-16 in the Spending Review, the DCLG announced last week.

The coalition’s Green Investment Bank has been tasked with boosting private investment in the green economy – a high-potential sector constrained by limited finance. Winnie Agbonlahor meets chief executive Shaun Kingsbury.