The civil service has not changed beyond recognition: though stretched and stressed, it remains utterly professional and dedicated to its public service role, combining political impartiality with a heartfelt commitment to serving the elected government. But since the credit crunch, officials have seen their organisations, processes and workforces substantially rebuilt for a new era. And throughout that time, Civil Service World has remained a pink, fortnightly, tabloid newspaper: it’s time we caught up.
So on 11 June we published our last ever fortnightly tabloid CSW: a collector’s item, in the format of the 12 June's chip wrappers. From that point, we've put all of our news on our website – enabling us to publish far more articles; to cover events as they happen, rather than whenever we next publish a paper; and to allocate resources to stories according to their importance, rather than our proximity to deadline. Meanwhile, we’ve relaunched our print publication as a monthly 64-page, full-colour magazine: targeted more closely at top leaders and managers, the renewed CSW is designed to help senior civil servants and their partners to develop their careers and organisations, address emerging agendas, and gather ideas, information and contacts from across government. We’ve retained our traditional long-form interviews, features and special reports, but leavened them with high-profile columnists and regular briefings on topics such as leadership and management, the select committees, parliamentary affairs, and civil service working practices.
With these changes, CSW has finally addressed some of the challenges that our readers have been wrestling with over the last six years. Like you, we’ve remained true to our ethos: CSW’s mag and website will remain a free, independent service to the public sector, funded by private partners. Like you, we’ve found reform difficult and painful: to stay within budget we’ve had to cut the free circulation of the monthly by about 15% (though everyone received the first issue). And like you, we’ve dealt with personnel changes as we undertake reform: deputy and online editor Joshua Chambers, whose website relaunch made these changes possible, has moved on (and up). But we have – again like the civil service – tried to find a way to adapt to new challenges in a way that works for everyone: print readers in the SCS and parliament will have a far more substantial and diverse publication, whilst our strengthened online news will help all civil servants to keep up to date with events across government.
On that note, if you don’t receive our email bulletins, then please do sign up: just click on the button on the right-hand side of our homepage, www.civilserviceworld.com. As we've moved to the new system, bulletins’ news content has become, well, newer. And watch out for the relaunched CSW. It is, I hope, a much more diverse and involving read; what’s certain is that it enjoys far higher production values, whilst retaining our commitment to serious, fair, original and high-quality journalism. So we’ll continue to do what we can to help civil servants talk to each other, reaching across government to deliver better services for the public whilst minimising taxation. And now we're better equipped to do that: like our readers, we’ve tackled the challenges of a changing economy, society and communications infrastructure. As to whether we've succeeded... well, you can be the judge of that.
Footnote. The monthly Civil Service World will continue to be distributed free to all senior civil servants: if you're a senior civil servant but don't receive it, please email editorial@civilserviceworld.com. Other public servants will be able to subscribe at the discounted rate of £49 for a year (£99 for private sector staff).