As CSW celebrates its 20th anniversary, we look back on our most memorable moments and reflect on how times have changed since we launched
Two decades is a long time in government. When we launched as Whitehall & Westminster World in 2004, Tony Blair’s New Labour drove the policy of the day. Our archives capture vignettes of the high-profile projects civil servants were working on in those early years – from ASBOs and the Euro to the long, tortuous development (and, later, scrapping) of ID cards. Back then, after a period of expansion, officials were grappling with how to do “more with more”. Such a dilemma seems inconceivable now.
In our first issue, Oliver Letwin – then shadow chancellor – set out his vision of a smaller, less “interfering” government, saying civil servants had “far too much work to do”. But although Letwin and his coalition colleagues would oversee years of downsizing, the work didn’t shrink. In 2015, CSW would report on the words of thencivil service chief executive John Manzoni, who said government was doing “30% too much to do it well”. Today, headcount reductions – after numbers climbed again thanks to Brexit and Covid – and ruthless prioritisation are both back in vogue as politicians once again set departments targets for slashing their spending.
“Back then, officials were grappling with how to do more with more”
Twenty years ago, we could never have anticipated the impact digital advances would have on public services. Nor indeed the effect changing technology would have on the thing CSW cares most about: civil servants’ working lives. From the revolution in hybrid working, hastened by the pandemic, to civil servants’ in-office attendance somehow becoming a staple of the UK culture wars, we’ve covered it all. And if you’d told early readers of our fortnightly newspaper that, in 2024, an increasing number of CSW column inches would be devoted to the impact generative AI could have on offi cials’ jobs, they might think you’d been watching too much sci-fi .
As times have changed, so too have we. We set out as a newspaper that helped government leaders communicate across departmental divides. As former cabinet secretary Lord Gus O’Donnell wrote for us in 2012, “I can’t remember permanent secretaries ever giving interviews in the newspapers until CSW appeared, but you’ve managed to tempt them in.”
Since our launch we have adopted a more independent stance as a “critical friend” to the civil service. In 2009 we changed our name to Civil Service World to better reflect our readership outside London and beyond central government. In 2014, the pink pages gave way to a monthly magazine, as a relaunched website boasting comprehensive daily news and online exclusives made room for a focus on in-depth features and analysis in print. Our focus on being digital-first continued, and in 2023 we switched to a quarterly print cycle, with our matt-finish magazine remaining a repository for perm sec interviews, punchy comment pieces, detailed explorations of meaty topics like reducing reoffending or net zero along with articles celebrating the wonderfully diverse ways that officials serve the public.
There is a lot for us to celebrate too, which is why, in a special series in this year's summer, autumn and winter issues, we reflect on the highlights of two decades of CSW: the interviews with today’s top officials and politicians in their salad days, the reports on the crunch issues of the time and the some of the more lighthearted features offering a bit of niche, bureaucrat-based humour to our overworked readers.
To kick off the 20-year nostalgiafest, we raided the archive for CSW interviews of yesteryear, including David Blunkett, Clare Moriarty and other big names. Check out the first interviews here