News

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 new Home Office permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, arrived in Marsham Street soon after having worked in Afghanistan. He tells Joshua Chambers how he’s using his experience to turn the embattled department around.

Further savings in the Crown Prosecution Service will require politicians to make decisions about the justice system’s priorities, the former director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has told CSW.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has created a new director general-level role, in an effort to rebalance the department’s workload.

The rules surrounding civil servants’ pre-election contacts with political parties should be rethought, two former cabinet secretaries have told CSW.

The government’s moves to loosen the rules governing departmental consultations are leading to shorter consultation periods, Lord Bichard has told CSW – and one recent decision to avoid consulting entirely has resulted in a very poor piece of regulation.

Economic recovery presents a challenge for public sector talent management, as the cap on salaries makes it hard to recruit and retain talent. Stuart Watson reports on a round table that discussed how to deal with the problem.

Julie Chappell, head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Emerging Powers Department, has won a ‘Women of the Future’ award.

Legislation giving the National Audit Office (NAO) access to the accounts of private companies delivering public services would be “extremely helpful”, Amyas Morse, the auditor general, said last week.

Just 9% of civil servants believe that ministers and senior managers “openly encourage challenge, debate and reporting of operational problems”, according to a survey carried out by CSW with marketing communications agency Claremont.

National statistician Jil Matheson yesterday told MPs of her “frustration” over the problems she’s had in accessing administrative data held by government departments.

The defence secretary has hit back at claims that his department is attempting to suppress information, insisting that he has simply required military chiefs to follow the same external communication rules as any other senior public official.

Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has tightened the wording of permanent secretaries’ objectives to hold them more closely to account for the progress of civil service reform, he’s told Civil Service World.

Treasury solicitor Sir Paul Jenkins is to retire next March, he’s told CSW, just as his shared services plans come to fruition and his team of lawyers expands from 700 to 1,700.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the latest to commission policy work to outside organisations by using money from the government’s Contestable Policy Fund, CSW can reveal.

Departments should publish an annual summary of secondments into and out of their organisation, to improve public confidence and transparency about potential lobbying, according to a report published today by the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL).

A suburban GP explains why he thinks the government has broken the NHS up into clinical commissioning groups

Jonathan Ashworth, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, has written to Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood questioning whether a recent appointment into the civil service was based on "merit, not party political allegiance”.

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“Photography these days is easy”, my friends like to say. “All you need is a good camera and a manual.” It may come as a surprise that these friends of mine are photographers. 

Treasury solicitor Sir Paul Jenkins is to retire next March, Civil Service World has learned.

The Government’s lobbying bill could have a “chilling effect on free speech”, according to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR). In a report published in October, the JCHR called for the Bill to be paused and amended.

Sharon White, currently director general for public services, has been appointed as the second permanent secretary at HM Treasury.

Statisticians’ status across government has dropped, according to Hetan Shah, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society.