Economy

Dame Judith Hackitt, the new head of the manufacturers’ organisation EEF, spent nine years overseeing the Health & Safety Executive before returning to her roots in industry. Sam Macrory meets her

Public and Commercial Services union general secretary says union must have “very important" debate about its future direction, and says PCS is "still standing" in spite of plans to end deduction of union fees from civil servants' pay packets

Competition and Markets Authority says privatised Land Registry could “degrade the terms of access to its monopoly data in order to weaken competition to its own commercial products”

New research by Vodafone explores the benefits of a robust partnership between public- and third -sector organisations

Crown Commercial Service to roll out the Open Contracting Data Standard across Whitehall by the autumn, as Cabinet Office acknowledges current contracts info acting as a "barrier to suppliers and businesses"

Treasury's second permanent secretary to set up new organisation bringing together research councils, in bid to support growth and cross-disciplinary research

General secretary of union for senior civil servants says staff cuts taking a toll on membership numbers — but defends move to extend reach with new Keystone initiative

Chancellor says Treasury civil servants planning for the impact of leaving the EU on financial stability in the UK – but Number 10 maintains no wider policy planning taking place

Donnelly says department is spending £168,000 a year on putting Sheffield and London staff up in hotels – but local MP Paul Blomfield says the BIS perm sec's latest answers give only a "half truth"

Border Force resource budget will be £558.1m for 2016/17 – a cut of 0.4% on last year – but the agency gets a capital spending boost

Cabinet Office minister Lord Bridges confirms government rethink on plans to end automatic payroll deduction of union fees from public servants

George Osborne says Brexit would cause UK to "lose tens of billions of pounds in money for our public services" – but eurosceptic MP Bernard Jenkin says chancellor “should be ashamed of himself” for ordering civil servants to draw up Treasury analysis

MPs demand tax agency improves “woefully inadequate” prosecutions record and says it should publish more straightforward details on the effectiveness of its work. But HMRC says it has been "relentless and strategic" in pursuing those who fail to pay their "fair share"

Civil service union PCS argues latest proposals do not take account of Land Registry's digital progress and could lead to a reduced capacity for statutory work

Macpherson says IDS's resignation over Personal Independence Payments was an "interesting, postmodern" decision

National Audit Office (NAO) report finds that each loan given out under the Department of Energy and Climate Change's Green Deal cost government £17,000, and flags poor use of evidence and testing when the scheme was designed 

Troup faces media scrutiny over role at Simmons & Simmons – as HMRC points out his role "has never involved responsibility for operational activities or direct dealings with companies on their tax affairs"

HMRC asks for access to the Panama Papers offshore leaks and vows to "relentlessly pursue" wrongdoing – but tax expert Richard Murphy says department "just hasn’t got the resources"

From the editor: Iain Duncan Smith's resignation highlights the sheer power of the Treasury under George Osborne

Communities and Local Government Committee says local authorities "must be able to have confidence in the effective operation" of the framework drawn up by central government to guide development decisions

As the Treasury's permanent Nick Macpherson this week departs the civil service after more than a decade as the department's most senior official, here's our full conversation with his former boss as chancellor, Alistair Darling – who worked with Macpherson as the Treasury grappled with the 2007-8 global economic crisis

Decade-long IT contract – underpinning £500bn in tax revenue – to come to an early end

Infrastructure and Projects Authority says strong public sector involvement coupled with move away from traditional government structures has been a important factor in the success of capital projects like London 2012 and Crossrail

Government Outcomes Lab being set up in partnership with Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government​ in a bid to assess the impact of outcome-based commissioning ​schemes