20 essential civil service reforms for Keir Starmer's government to succeed

Radical improvements to Whitehall are needed if Keir Starmer’s government is to deliver its priorities, says a new Institute for Government report. 

Published today, 20 ways to improve the civil service sets out essential measures to address problems with the civil service that have hindered successive prime ministers. These steps could be taken immediately – without the need for legislation – and would enhance the civil service’s ability to deliver for the new government and achieve success for its mission-led approach. 

While some will take time and effort to get right, implementing the IfG’s 20 recommendations – drawn from over half a decade of IfG research – would help the civil service manage its workforce more effectively, tackle damaging levels of staff turnover, reform pay structures and recruitment processes, access and utilise the full range of expertise outside of government, and open itself up to more challenge and scrutiny.

Successive governments have failed to address these issues, but Keir Starmer should take these immediate steps to give his government the best chance of success: 

1. Develop a comprehensive, long-term workforce plan aligning the civil service’s work, budgets and people 
2. Set departmental staff turnover targets and hold permanent secretaries to account for meeting them 
3. Enforce minimum terms of service for some civil servants, and give managers greater discretion over the timing of officials moving roles 
4. Introduce an expert pay review body for civil servants below the Senior Civil Service  
5. Allow civil servants to choose remuneration packages with different balances between pay and pensions 
6. Loosen the eligibility requirements for ‘Pivotal Role Allowance’ to better retain specialists  
7. Replace ‘success profiles’ to make recruitment less prescribed and more decentralised  
8. Set demanding, measurable service standards for civil servants’ onboarding and induction 
9. Require all civil service professions to develop capability frameworks for their members, including clear guidance for departments on pay 
10. Continue relocating civil servants outside London to themed campuses 
11. Create a mandatory training programme for performance management 
12. Give hiring managers access to the previous performance appraisals of internal candidates 
13. Establish a physical campus for the Government Skills and Curriculum Unit to strengthen the civil service’s commitment to staff training and development 
14. Advertise all civil service jobs externally by default 
15. Create more senior specialist roles in every department, which do not entail significant management responsibilities 
16. Set up large-scale secondment programmes in every department and ‘mission’ to facilitate higher levels of interchange with sectors outside UK government 
17. Require each department to appoint an individual with the authority to establish multidisciplinary teams 
18. Create a new Civil Service Board to hold the institution to account 
19. Set stringent standards for departments to follow on the timely publication of internal evidence, analysis and policy advice 
20. Enforce stricter standards on evaluation 

Jack Worlidge, senior researcher at the Institute for Government, said: 

“The new government has inherited a civil service in urgent need of reform, after successive administrations neglected longstanding problems which hamper its effectiveness. 

“The 20 reforms we propose would tackle these problems – from excessive churn to poor management – and are essential if the government is to achieve its ambitions.”

ENDS

Notes to editors  

1. The full report can be found on our website.
2. The Institute for Government is an independent think tank that works to make government more effective.  
3. For more information, including data to reproduce any charts, please contact press@instituteforgovernment.org.uk / 07850 313 791