Author Profile

Ruth Owen, director general of personal tax, tells Samera Owusu Tutu about her efforts to raise morale – and perhaps even a smile – at HMRC

Top Treasury official calls for closer working between Whitehall and local government

Sir David Bell calls for more trust in teachers and schools – and for an independent body to set education strategy

The head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat in the Cabinet Office will replace Sir Bob Kerslake at DCLG

Group of former perm secs and other top civil servants produce wish list to tackle churn

Offender management and rehabilitation services will be spun out from government in 2015

Twenty-one percent of doctors who die while undergoing “fitness to practise” investigations have taken their own lives, a report has revealed

CSW asks former ministers to appraise the UK civil service. This month, Sir Hugh Robertson MP gives his views

Time to stop the blame game and find solutions to clinical failure in the NHS, says PASC

Cultural change in the civil service proves to be the Red Tape Challenge’s silver lining according to Reform

Treasury favourite leaves for Ofcom in March 2015

Service integration and management of multi-supplier IT services (SIAM) is just one of a many IT functions that will be brought in-house, the government’s chief technology officer Liam Maxwell tells CSW

The Institute for Government (IfG) agrees with Margaret Hodge’s statement that open book accounting is essential for tackling issues in the government’s contract management, as outlined in a recent NAO report.

Greg Mulholland announced on social media that he was voting no to the ACOBA chair appointment yesterday.

The civil service has allowed large companies to become “quasi-monopoly suppliers” with too much contractual advantage, say the NAO today.

Second Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Sharon White is the lead candidate for the role of Ofcom chief executive, according to Sky News.

Despite declaring the government’s Northern Powerhouse initiative as being “at the heart” of the Autumn Statement, the chancellor George Osborne was quizzed on his limited devolution to cities and counties.

New rules on permanent secretary recruitment allowing the prime minister to make the final selection from a list of candidates came into force today.

A further six month delay in the roll-out of Universal Credit could cost the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) £2.3bn in lost societal benefits, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

More than 50% of spend on G-Cloud has gone to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) since its launch in February 2012, according to Crown Commercial Service sales figures.

The Home Office has re-appointed Serco to operate, maintain and manage Yarl’s Wood IRC, despite an ongoing investigation with the Serious Fraud Office.

The Treasury’s Scotland Analysis Programme Team won the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service Award in this year’s Civil Service Awards.

This year’s Civil Service Award winners were announced yesterday, at a ceremony held at Lancaster House and featuring speeches by prime minister David Cameron and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

As Whitehall looks to the cloud, how do those on the ground mitigate the risks? A recent round table explored the issue, as Samera Owusu Tutu reports.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) launched the Global Fraud Risk Register, its new global initiative for tackling fraud across the public sector.

David Blackall took up the position of acting chief executive of the Major Projects Authority (MPA) on 13 October, after being director of operations for a year.

Outsourcing group Serco is selling off the majority of its private sector business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to raise funds and focus on supplying for governments, according to a stock exchange announcement by the firm earlier this week.

Government’s flagship mutual, MyCSP, has failed to pay some retired civil servants their pensions on schedule, after a shift to bring its payment functions in-house hit an IT problem, the Guardian reported on Saturday.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) have now moved their digital Vehicle Management service to private beta.

Changes were made last month to how civil servants give evidence to select committees.

The way arm’s-length government is structured and held to account was branded “confused” and “opaque” in a Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) report today, and the Cabinet Office was called upon to bring clarity to how these bodies and organisations work within the civil service.

The appointment of women to the boards of public bodies has reached a record high, according to the commissioner for public appointments, Sir David Normington.

The leader of the Opposition’s new electoral strategist, Lucy Powell, was also named as shadow Cabinet Office minister in yesterday’s Labour mini-reshuffle.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) flood defence resources are limited and current spending is “insufficient to meet many of the maintenance needs” identified by the Environment Agency (EA), the National Audit Office (NAO) said today.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has announced that next year it will launch its new virtual ID assurance service, Gov.UK Verify.