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Over the past three decades, no government has been able to achieve reductions in the administrative costs of central government equal to those proposed by the coalition, a report from Oxford University said earlier this month.

Now new permanent secretary Jon Thompson has his feet well under the table at the Ministry of Defence, he will be on the receiving end of a lot of good – and not so good – advice. I can offer a few thoughts about how the momentum of reform can best be maintained in a high-tempo department characterised by its preponderance of alpha personalities and diversity of vested interests.

Fewer than two-thirds of government departments have adequate plans for providing assurance on major projects, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said in a report published yesterday.

A set of interviewees who went on to greater things

Scouring the 5,000,000 words in 200 issues of CSW and its predecessor Whitehall & Westminster World, we’ve picked out the stories that made the news, set the agenda, offered an insight – and revealed something fascinating.

Last year the cabinet secretary’s job was split up, creating three vacancies; and now the third job – that of Cabinet Office permanent secretary – has been filled. Joshua Chambers interviews Richard Heaton

The Ministry of Defence’s new permanent secretary, Jon Thompson, tells Matt Ross how he intends to turn this most complex of Whitehall departments into a more professional operation – and dig it out of its financial hole

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The MOD must store institutional knowledge in its armoury

An NHS hospital employee says that reforms are creating a culture of fear about jobs, affecting morale and increasing stress-related illnesses among staff

Progress reports on strategic capability submitted by every department show a lack of strategic thinking, the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has said.

Health department permanent secretary Una O’Brien has written to other permanent secretaries asking them to sign up to public health campaigns designed to improve the health of their staff.

The DCMS will cut its staff, forcing them re-apply for their jobs, accept voluntary redundancy or leave by other mutual agreement.

The new head of the Welsh Civil Service, Derek Jones, will take up his position on 8 October after a four year hiatus from the civil service. He replaces Dame Gillian Morgan, who retired in August. Jones was the director of business and partnerships at Cardiff University, and prior to this role he spent 30 years as a civil servant, including as a senior director.

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.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has learned lessons about appropriate timescales and evidence-gathering from the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), MoD permanent secretary Jon Thompson has told CSW, and work has already begun on a 2015 SDSR.

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As the Parliament’s halfway point looms, Tim Fish and Ben Willis examine the Cabinet Office’s progress against the tasks it was set in May 2010 as part of the Coalition’s Programme for Government.

As dangers facing the UK develop, so must the means of preventing attack. Joshua Chambers looks at the threats to UK cyber security, and the methods being used to defend Britain’s public and private sectors.

The marathon effort to put on the greatest show in the world almost hit the skids when security firm G4S failed to deliver on its promises. Joshua Chambers explores the lessons for contract management and major projects

A plea for sensible policy-making – and more cash

When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy on 19 June, he created a dispute over when a diplomatic mission enjoys ‘inviolability’. The subject of an extradition request from Sweden for questioning on allegations of rape and sexual molestation, he’d exhausted legal remedies against his extradition when he entered the embassy, apparently with its prior agreement. So what does international law say?

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