Civil Service World

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Derided as the Frankenstein’s monster of Whitehall: Will Labour really abolish DCMS?

4 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Jim Dunton |Sienna Rodgers |Sophie Church

It has been derided as the Frankenstein’s monster of Whitehall: an ungainly collection of limbs, animated in madness, its fleeting autonomy as tragic as it is doomed. That its current political head is also reportedly being readied for the chop by the rival that pipped her to the top job has made the narrative irresistible.
PACAC to shine spotlight on propriety and ethics in government

5 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Beckie Smith |Dave Penman

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has launched a new inquiry into propriety and ethics in government. The committee will use the inquiry to examine the progress made so far on the government’s manifesto commitments to raise standards of ethics and integrity in government and to restore trust between the public and politics. These include setting up an ethics and integrity commission with an independent chair “to ensure probity in government”.
Strategic Defence Review targets ‘minimum’ 10% savings from civil service

5 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Jim Dunton

Ministers have given their backing to all 62 recommendations in the just-published Strategic Defence Review 2025 – including a commitment to reduce the Ministry of Defence’s civil service costs by “at least 10%” by 2030. The latest SDR also includes calls to ramp up the UK’s capacity for uncrewed and autonomous defence systems – such as drones – and for a “comprehensive approach” to improving industrial productivity that supports the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
MoJ sets up new probation and reoffending directorate

6 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Beckie Smith |Jim Dunton

The Ministry of Justice is setting up a new probation and reoffending directorate to bring policy work on the two areas closer together and respond to growing demand for the two services. The directorate will provide “significant policy input” to deliver justice secretary Shabana Mahmood’s priority of using technology solutions to manage offenders in the community, according to a job advert for a director to lead the team.
Ex-civil servant Peter Unwin returns as Natural England deputy chair

6 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Beckie Smith |Tevye Markson

A former acting permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has returned from a decade-long hiatus from the civil service to become deputy chair of Natural England. Peter Unwin, who left Defra in 2015, took up his new role on 1 April and will stay in the post until 31 December, the non-departmental public body has announced. He has been a board member at Natural England since 2020.
For AI to serve the public, we need comprehensive reform - Labour's data bill isn't the answer

6 days ago | civilserviceworld.com | Tevye Markson

More and more of government’s day-to-day decisions are being automated. Public authorities hope that by deploying technologies such as AI, they can deliver a massive reduction in the cost of administering public services. But as they are doing so, they are uncertain about how the rules which constrain human officials will apply to machines’ decision processes.
OBR chief in line for another five-year term

1 week ago | civilserviceworld.com | Jim Dunton

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has nominated Office for Budget Responsibility chair Richard Hughes for another five-year term at the helm of the public-finance watchdog. Hughes, who is a former director of fiscal policy at the Treasury – and who also previously served as acting chief economist at the department – has held his current job at the OBR since 2020. The OBR’s role of providing independent scrutiny of the government’s tax and spending plans is often not without controversy.
Citizen experience at scale: The challenge for reimagining public services

1 week ago | civilserviceworld.com | Beckie Smith

Imagine a world in which interacting with government services feels as effortless as ordering a morning coffee – they remember your name, recognise you as the person who likes warm oat milk in their coffee, and respect your need to rush off to work after delivering your drink with a smile. That is the vision of a modern digital state, as laid out in Secretary of State Peter Kyle’s foreword to the government’s blueprint for a modern digital government.
Places for Growth: More than 23,000 civil service jobs have been relocated, new data shows

1 week ago | civilserviceworld.com | Jim Dunton |Beckie Smith

The Cabinet Office’s Places for Growth programme exceeded its original target of moving 22,000 civil service jobs out of London by the second quarter of 2024, just-published transparency data has revealed. Launched in 2020 under the Johnson government, the initial deadline for relocations was the end of the decade – but the Sunak administration brought the target forward by three years in 2023.
NI Civil Service ‘wouldn't be able to handle 80% office attendance’

1 week ago | civilserviceworld.com | Jim Dunton |Tevye Markson

The Northern Ireland Civil Service would not be able to handle a mandate for staff to work at least four days a week in their offices because there is not enough space, a Stormont committee has been told. Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Committee for Finance heard this week that a programme to cut the number of offices NICS staff operate from by 28 over the next three years is on track to deliver – and that a back-to-the-office drive wouldn’t work.