News

The Department of Health (DH) needs to ensure more is done to protect vulnerable patients who rely on mental health services, according to a report published today.

A law firm has prompted a retreat by the Home Office on its ‘go home’ immigration vans, which have been driving round London in a pilot.

Britain is not ready to cope with its ageing society – and government should say more on the subject, argues Lord Geoffrey Filkin, chairman of the Lords Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change.

In a rare public appearance at Civil Service Live earlier this month a GCHQ official warned civil servants about IT security. Joshua Chambers listened in

The one thing which Churchill’s Secret Cabinet doesn’t tell us – as it builds gradually up towards its examination of 43 previously-unheard recordings of Winston Churchill, found recently in an old record cabinet – is how the staff at the Churchill Archive managed to overlook these gems for nearly two decades. Perhaps the researcher charged with looking through the cabinet when the archive first received it 20 years ago was distracted by an offer of lunch as they sifted through the Gilbert & Sullivan. 

Sir Andrew Witty, lead non-executive director of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has announced that he will step down from his government role in December.

Jane Platt is chief executive of NS&I, Britain’s venerable state-owned savings bank. She talks to Joshua Chambers about keeping rival financial institutions sweet, diversity in the City, and the future for arm’s-length bodies.

The civil service’s separation of policy and delivery professionals is “artificial” and “crackers”, the government’s digital director Mike Bracken told an audience at Civil Service Live earlier this month, and IT policies should be produced by “multi-disciplinary teams” bringing together the two sets of specialists.

The current system for applying for carer’s allowance is “atrocious” and provides “a really poor service”, the man in charge of digital services at the Department for Work and Pensions has said.

The Department of Health has launched a new digital toolkit for policymakers.

PASC chair Bernard Jenkin is highly critical of aspects of the civil service – but he’s sympathetic to civil servants themselves, and earlier this month an audience of officials gave his arguments a warm reception. Matt Ross reports.

Officials leading major projects can now benefit from a ‘pivotal role allowance’ (PRA) introduced to encourage senior responsible owners (SROs) to stay in their job for the full length of a project, Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service, told Civil Service Live last week.

A national campaign to improve the treatment of long-term conditions was launched this week by an alliance of NHS managers and businesses.

America’s fracking revolution has driven down energy prices and given the economy a boost – but could the same happen here? CSW asked the Institute of Directors’ Corin Taylor and energy expert Professor Jim Watson of the University of Sussex to address the question: will fracking be good for the UK?

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