Below are a few initial thoughts on the challenges outlined by IfG. Prospect argues for new professional approaches to deliver better quality services, set standards for ethical behaviour and fair employment practices. This is a hair’s breadth from IfG’s aspiration to create a high-quality, high-morale and highly effective civil service. But we don’t think...
Most civil service risk registers are barely worth the name. When I was at Defra our risk registers made no mention of dangerous climate change, or new evidence suggesting all our environmental policies were unaffordable, or large scale flooding, or the animal health equivalent of the five plagues. Instead the usual risk register focused...
Permanent secretaries cannot just privately seethe over Mrs Hodge’s more aggressive style at the PAC, and, in particular, the decision to require the HMRC’s lawyer to swear an oath -which prompted a strong exchange of letters with Gus O’Donnell just before his retirement. The new civil service leadership has sought to cool the temperature,...
The Cabinet Office default approach to reform is as follows: White Papers, a Cabinet Office DG, reform strands led by permanent secretaries, action plans for departments, units to monitor departmental progress, annual reports on progress. Like medieval Italian warfare, all these things will be beautifully paraded, but when the final trumpets have sounded, everyone...
This is not an era of job security for civil servants. The National Audit Office (NAO) notes that 114,000 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff from the civil service are expected to leave between 2010 and 2015 – a reduction of 23%. Our latest Whitehall Monitor report shows that there has already been a reduction...
Mansion tax anyone? Tycoon tax? 50p rate maintained? An end to higher rate relief on pensions? Hiking tax thresholds – boon to the poor or regressive move? Or cutting corporation tax to 20 per cent? The Budget starter list (the usual starting point for the budget process listing all the options potentially on the...