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Report by the National Audit Office says the centre of government must do more to support departments struggling to manage the changing Whitehall workforce

Austin Mitchell reviews a new book examining the impact of decades of reform to central government 

Stereotyped as masters of the dark arts, what role do special advisers really play? As a new crop arrives in Whitehall, Sarah Aston asked some veteran spads to share their war stories

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell calls on new Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock to scrap a rule which means fast streamers must change jobs every six months

Official in charge of Scotland’s fair work agenda admits set-up of Scottish civil service keeps out applicants with criminal convictions

FDA and PCS unions sound the alarm over proposals to end "six figure" public sector redundancy pay

Professor Timothy Richard Dafforn – entrepreneur in residence for synthetic biology – is named as new chief scientific adviser for BIS at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 

With longstanding public accounts committee chair Margaret Hodge announcing that she won't be seeking another five years at the helm of parliament's powerful cross-party spending watchdog, Civil Service World asked the three Labour MPs hoping to succeed her why they want the job, and whether they think the committee's treatment of officials needs to change

Civil service culture is perceived to be one of the biggest barriers to digital change, a survey carried out by techUK reveals 

New minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock has set out his stall for five more years of civil service reform. Here's our full report on how it unfolded

In full: "Making the civil service work for modern Britain", Minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock's May 22 speech to the Institute for Government on civil service reform

First minister Nicola Sturgeon appoints new top civil servant to Scottish government

Tom Karsten – a Royal Navy real admiral – is named as the new CEO of Cefas

Civil service chief executive John Manzoni points to end of the "Francis Maude era" in his first speech to the FDA union

FDA union general secretary Dave Penman warns that civil servants have been left "undervalued, exhausted and unclear about the future"

Prime minister David Cameron has announced the re-appointment of Cabinet ministers George Osborne, Theresa May, Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon

Tom Read leaves chief technology officer job at the Cabinet Office as CTO brief is rolled into new chief digital officer role

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude tells CSW that performance management should move from a system where managers categorise set proportions of staff as performing well, acceptably and poorly to one where employees are individually ranked best to worst

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg promises above-inflation payrise for public sector from 2019 if party holds "balance of power"

Foreign Office announces that its permanent secretary Simon Fraser is to leave Whitehall at the end of July

In the second of CSW's in-depth assessments of the party manifestos, Mark Rowe picks apart the Tory document to find out what the party has in store for the civil service

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan says civil service's Fast Stream graduate programme will have 'diversity targets and quotas' to improve black and minority ethnic representation

Former Scope and Mencap IT director Conall Bullock takes on newly-created Cabinet Office role, reporting directly to permanent secretary Richard Heaton

Kate Collyer appointed to the new role of deputy chief economic adviser at the Competition and Markets Authority