News

The Labour party would consider merging “management and bureaucracy” across government departments, agencies and other public services as part of a “zero based spending review” if it wins power at the next election, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) spent years engulfed in painful criticism. Mark Grimshaw, who came in as chief executive two years ago determined to turn things around, tells Winnie Agbonlahor how he’s smartened up its act

Shadow cabinet minister Jon Trickett has said that it “cannot be right” that “the highest levels of the civil service are drawn almost exclusively from a narrow social elite”, and pledged that Labour would tackle the “existence of elitism, whether it be through structural, process, or embedded sub-conscious prejudice” if the party wins power in 2015.

Dave Hartnett, the former second permanent secretary of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has been accused by Margaret Hodge MP of having “no shame” after taking a job as an adviser to accountancy giants Deloitte.

Plans requiring senior civil servants at the Department of Health (DH) to spend 20 working days a year on the frontline are “absurd”, Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Public Administration Select Committee, said on Monday.

Few civil servants believe the government’s IT Strategy has so far made a big impact in improving the efficiency or effectiveness of IT, a CSW survey has found.

The government has no alternative but to roll out its Whole Place Community Budgets (WPCB) programme – a more area-based approach to public service delivery – the chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA), Sir Merrick Cockell, has said.

The Cabinet last week said that it was “pleased to endorse” the findings of David Boyle’s independent review of barriers to choice in public services.

Just along from the Houses of Parliament there used to stand an old slum, described in The Times as “a reproach to Westminster”. 

Aeronautics are a good example of a new form of partnership between government and industry. Suzannah Brecknell looks at the levers which can enable Whitehall and business to effectively work togeth

George Catlin American Indian Portraits

National Portrait Gallery

Until 23 June

The Behavioural Insights Team, or ‘nudge unit’, will become a profit-making joint-venture mutual, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced last week.

The Treasury’s Infrastructure Plan, prioritising for 40 key infrastructure projects, has been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The United States government is concerned about Ministry of Defence (MOD) plans to outsource the procurement of military equipment to the private sector.

Departments must fully evaluate cloud-based products when buying new or renewing existing IT services, and will only be able to purchase non-cloud-based alternatives if they can demonstrate that this offers better value for money, under a ‘Cloud First’ policy announced by the Cabinet Office last week.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) should retain its current structure because it responded swiftly and retained public trust after the discovery in January that horsemeat was appearing in frozen food products sold as beef, the organisation’s chief executive, Catherine Brown, has told Civil Service World.

Alex Ellis has just left his post as the FCO’s director of strategy to become ambassador to Brazil. On his last day in the job, Winnie Agbonlahor learns how he’s tried to encourage greater self-criticism in a department not known for its self-lacerating humility.

A tenant support worker employed by a charity says benefit reforms are causing unnecessary suffering.

To envisage my best handwriting, imagine an enthusiastic but pigeon-toed spider that has, after falling into the proverbial inkwell, attempted to combine a Cossack dance, ballet and the 100m sprint.

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.

New DECC chief Stephen Lovegrove has, to his evident relief, missed all the big battles over the direction of our energy policies – but he does face huge challenges in putting those policies into practice. Matt Ross meets him

The Cabinet Office has created a joint venture company to commercialise government’s portfolio of ‘Best Management Practice’ training tools and services.

The British Library’s vast collection is about to get much bigger. Suzannah Brecknell meets its new chief executive, Roly Keating, to find out how the world’s second largest library is reinventing itself for the digital age