Whitehall Monitor 2024

Watch a summary of our key findings

This is the 11th edition of Whitehall Monitor – our annual, data-based assessment of the UK civil service, how it has changed and performed over the past year, and its priorities for the future.

This edition covers the first full calendar year of the Sunak government, and the last before the next general election, which the prime minister has suggested will be in late 2024. It was a year in which some of the immediate pressures facing the civil service eased – while there were still challenges to contend with, its work was not defined by all-encompassing crises as it has been in recent years.

In Part 1 of the report, we look at how the civil service changed in 2023 against this backdrop. We find some encouraging progress. Digital skills, for example, are improving at pace, while the institution continues to become more representative of the society it serves. Yet overall, 2023 was a missed opportunity. Serious problems remain unaddressed, with high levels of turnover and low pay and morale particularly concerning.

The second part of this year’s Whitehall Monitor therefore sets out the Institute’s view on long-term reform priorities for the civil service. We examine the deep-rooted problems that successive government have failed to address, and recommend fundamental reforms that will enable the civil service to better serve the government and the country.