Government Tax Profession

Senior civil servants often “don’t know what’s going on” with contracts held by their departments and thus spot problems too late, Joshua Reddaway, the National Audit Office’s director for commercial and contracting, has warned.

Civil servants who challenge ministers’ ill thought-through policy ideas are generally blamed for blocking change and become the “butt of hostility”, former Labour minister Charles Clarke has said.

The new chief executive of the civil service is likely to "lack the authority he/she needs to help drive forward real reform”, according to shadow Cabinet Office minister Michael Dugher.

Sir Jeremy Heywood has this week taken over the role of head of the civil service from Sir Bob Kerslake, who in July announced his forthcoming retirement.

Former Credit Suisse chief information officer Magnus Falk has this week started his new role as government deputy chief technology officer, one of 100 senior digital specialists brought into government over the past year.

More than half of permanent secretaries attended Oxbridge, compared to less than 1% of the public as a whole, according to a report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission which criticises the lack of diversity among the people running the country.

The new chief executive of the civil service will only have “sufficient authority” if he/she reports directly to the prime minister, rather than Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, John Healey, co-founder of new think-tank GovernUp, has said.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has denied telling its employees how to vote in the Scottish referendum, after its permanent secretary Robert Devereux issued department-wide guidance on the topic.

Members of the public will be able to search the government property portfolio from today, using a new tool that maps all government-held land and buildings.

We still need generalists, says the Cabinet Office minister. By Winnie Agbonlahor.

Speaking to the Financial Times, head of the Major Projects Authority (MPA), John Manzoni, made it clear that the MPA would be taking a careful look at the Ministry of Justice’s probation outsourcing programme.

If Scotland votes to go it alone, the civil service will face a massive task – and, as CSW editor Matt Ross argues, it will do so quite unprepared

Appointments, job changes and exits among senior civil servants and key figures in the wider public service

The government’s chief operating officer Stephen Kelly has today announced he will leave the civil service in November to become the chief executive of business software firm Sage Group.

The Cabinet Office has made clear that its new chief executive will require substantial experience as a top business person, ruling out the vast majority of serving civil servants.

The £15.8bn Crossrail programme was commended for demonstrating good programme management by a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report, published yesterday.

Border Force director general Sir Charles Montgomery rejected suggestions by Home Affairs Select Committee chair Keith Vaz (pictured) that 250 border guards are suing the organisation over its new “itchy” uniforms.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “should urgently invest in its operational, technical and commercial skills,” a report by the National Audit Office has found.

In the first of a series of articles examining digital services, Tim Gibson explains online voter registration – a new IT system lying at the very heart of our democracy.

The government will commit to buying British food from 2017 under new guidelines encouraging the whole public sector — including schools and hospitals — to do the same, it has been announced today.

Companies House is to make all of its digital data available for free from April 2015.

Robert Devereux, permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, has rejected the National Audit Office's conclusion that the Work Programme is no more effective than its predecessors.

Top New Zealand official Iain Rennie is reforming a system often lauded in the UK. Suzannah Brecknell reports

The government’s controversial patient record-sharing programme care.data, paused in February after noisy opposition, will be restarted as a pilot this autumn, according to NHS England’s national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey.