Government Tax Profession

Pinsent Masons lawyer and former Stonewall chair David Isaac to become chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) after promising to step back from decisions around government contracts

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Louise Haigh says use of WhatsApp should either be "banned completely or brought under the FoI legislation"

Cabinet Office minister says distributed ledgers could offer a "better way" of monitoring the distribution of government cash

Former chief of defence materiel, who left the civil service at the end of 2015, to carry out progress review for the MoD on equipment buying

Foreign Affairs Committee report says challenges of vote to leave would not be "insurmountable" for the Foreign Office – but makes clear the department would need a big boost in resources to cope with the fall-out

Open data organisation co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee says proposed model for the privately-owned Land Registry "appears very similar to historic examples of long-term outsourcing deals and risks repeating the same mistakes"

Department of Health says “military level” contingency planning in place to ensure emergency care will continue

Two new proposed tenders aim to simplify mobile working through use of the cloud

Online payments firm Stripe – which handles payments for Kickstarter – among those chosen in revamped approach to government merchant services

Union's deputy general secretary says 1% average pay rise cap is "not sustainable", after government gives departments more freedom to reward "outstanding" senior officials

New appointments in the civil service, UK politics, and public affairs, via our colleagues on Dods People

Best performing councils could be allowed to run their own academy chains, in a bid to mollify Tory MPs concerned about full academisation

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"

Public Accounts Committee warns departments still "do not know their future resource needs and will have to resort more often to using consultants and temporary staff"

Standards and Testing Agency chief executive Jennifer Coupland blames "failure to follow appropriate clearance processes" and apologises to parents and teachers

Government sets out response as Senior Salaries Review Body warns some managers earning less than their juniors – but FDA blasts "sticking plaster" approach

Meg Hillier and Iain Wright demand detail on BIS restructuring – after permanent secretary Martin Donnelly says the department cannot give figures while redundancy talks continue

Department points out that shift to include spending on war pensions and intelligence gathering falls within Nato guidelines

Unions welcomed Court of Appeal decision backing 2015 ruling that amendments to DfT's staff handbook were unlawful

Mismatch between school year used by academies and DfE's own accounting period means parliament cannot properly hold the department to account, says the NAO

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

New report calls on government to give better detail on city region power structures and spending

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee asks whether civil service in its current form is "appropriate for the twenty-first century" – and whether Whitehall's pay policy for officials is up to scratch

Union general secretary sticks up for the Home Office second perm sec after Home Affairs Committee grilling