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The DECC change programme

Following a review of the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) change programme, Daniel Thornton and OIiver Ilott explain how the Chancellor’s edict to do ‘more with less’ has manifested itself in Whitehall’s newest department.

In September 2015, DECC approached the Institute for Government to provide insights on its change programme. The ‘DECC Works’ project aimed to reduce the department’s headcount (a 16% reduction by 2018), support new ways of working (such as improving the way the department prioritised), and change its shape (as the department was seen to have too many grade 6s and 7s – see the figure below).


The IfG has previously provided this kind of support to change programmes at several other government departments, including the Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice. In December 2015, we conducted more than 20 interviews with senior civil servants at DECC to review the existing change programme and identify areas of focus for the next stage of the process.

We found a department which was on a positive trajectory. Staff agreed with the goals of the change programme and felt that it was given visible leadership by the Permanent Secretary and by the then change Director, Hugh McNeal. However, there was concern that the department had not yet created the conditions for the department to prioritise given its more limited resources.

We presented our findings at the DECC Executive Committee in February 2016 (you can see the full presentation below). As the department enters the next phase of the change programme, it is clear that it needs to focus on the conditions that would encourage new ways of working. As DECC’s Permanent Secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, moves to become Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, it is also important that leadership of the change process is sustained.

Government departments are shrinking and trying to change the way they work. In the last Parliament, the Government shed 18% of its civil servants, while unprotected departments made an average 19% cut to their day-to-day spending (RDEL). For many departments, the most recent Spending Review confirmed that the next few years will resemble the last few in terms of the scale of change demanded. DECC is not the only department to feel the pressure of budget cuts, and this project represents a part of the IfG’s ongoing work in assisting other departments and agencies undergoing change.

If you’d like to speak to us about our research, please tweet Daniel Thornton, Programme Director, @DanOnGov.

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Brexit

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