Government Tax Profession

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.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which was this year abolished by home secretary Theresa May, was “never going to work”, its former chief Rob Whiteman told the Public Administration Select Committee on 17 June.

The civil service is “one of the key players in resisting the devolution” of powers from Whitehall to local authorities, Clive Betts, chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, has told CSW. 

Plans to part-privatise the Land Registry have been paused by the government, in a move welcomed by trade unions who have been campaigning against the sell-off.

An official responsible for an IT contracting error which cost the Ministry of Defence (MoD) £70m is no longer working for the department, its permanent secretary Jon Thompson told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 16 June​.

Civil servants must give ministers “the most challenging advice”, because ministers “absolutely want to be told” what will and won’t work, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said today.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg today told an audience of civil servants that ministers have a “duty to acknowledge and respect your role as the backbone of the public infrastructure, that has to survive the ebb and flow as governments come and go.”

Lord O’Donnell, former head of the civil service, has dismissed as “silly” suggestions that permanent secretaries should only serve the “priorities of the government of the day”, rather than balancing them against the long-term aims of their department.

Civil servants have today joined a massive cross-public sector strike against austerity measures.

Civil servants responsible for running major projects will be able to tell parliament when ministers directed them to make particular decisions, under proposals published by the government.

The government’s reluctance to devolve powers away from London has given a boost to the campaign for Scottish independence, Graham Allen, chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, has said.

The UK’s new national statistician and chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), John Pullinger, has pledged to back statisticians across government if they feel that their figures are being misused by politicians.

Civil servants should win and maintain ministers’ trust to ensure their advice is “taken seriously”, according to Martin Donnelly, permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Policy officials should consider alternatives to regulation “early in policymaking”, the National Audit Office warned in a report published on 30 June.

Government spending on outsourcing contracts rose by 23% to £1.2bn between 2012 and 2013, bringing the two-year total to £2.3bn, while expenditure in most other sectors fell by between 1% and 20%, according to analysis of public sector transactions carried out by the Institute for Government (IfG).

Simon Case, the prime minister’s private secretary, will be the new head of the Implementation Unit, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has told CSW.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ failure to pilot its Personal Independence Payment (PIP) programme has led to delays, backlogs and “unnecessary distress for claimants”, according to a report published today by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The former UK Border Agency (UKBA) was doomed to fail due to its sheer scale and constant media attention, its former chief executive Rob Whiteman has said.

Civil servants earning £100,000 or more who take redundancy could be forced to pay back some of the cash if they return to the same part of the public sector within a year, under legislation announced in this month's Queen’s Speech.​

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has committed to spending up to £10bn on the government’s Help to Buy scheme without establishing whether it represents the most effective way of using taxpayers’ money, the Public Accounts Committee have said in a report published on 18 July.