Government Tax Profession

Speaking to the Financial Times, head of the Major Projects Authority (MPA), John Manzoni, made it clear that the MPA would be taking a careful look at the Ministry of Justice’s probation outsourcing programme.

If Scotland votes to go it alone, the civil service will face a massive task – and, as CSW editor Matt Ross argues, it will do so quite unprepared

Appointments, job changes and exits among senior civil servants and key figures in the wider public service

The government’s chief operating officer Stephen Kelly has today announced he will leave the civil service in November to become the chief executive of business software firm Sage Group.

The Cabinet Office has made clear that its new chief executive will require substantial experience as a top business person, ruling out the vast majority of serving civil servants.

The £15.8bn Crossrail programme was commended for demonstrating good programme management by a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report, published yesterday.

Border Force director general Sir Charles Montgomery rejected suggestions by Home Affairs Select Committee chair Keith Vaz (pictured) that 250 border guards are suing the organisation over its new “itchy” uniforms.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “should urgently invest in its operational, technical and commercial skills,” a report by the National Audit Office has found.

In the first of a series of articles examining digital services, Tim Gibson explains online voter registration – a new IT system lying at the very heart of our democracy.

The government will commit to buying British food from 2017 under new guidelines encouraging the whole public sector — including schools and hospitals — to do the same, it has been announced today.

Companies House is to make all of its digital data available for free from April 2015.

Robert Devereux, permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, has rejected the National Audit Office's conclusion that the Work Programme is no more effective than its predecessors.

Top New Zealand official Iain Rennie is reforming a system often lauded in the UK. Suzannah Brecknell reports

The government’s controversial patient record-sharing programme care.data, paused in February after noisy opposition, will be restarted as a pilot this autumn, according to NHS England’s national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA), which was this year abolished by home secretary Theresa May, was “never going to work”, its former chief Rob Whiteman told the Public Administration Select Committee on 17 June.

The civil service is “one of the key players in resisting the devolution” of powers from Whitehall to local authorities, Clive Betts, chair of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, has told CSW. 

Plans to part-privatise the Land Registry have been paused by the government, in a move welcomed by trade unions who have been campaigning against the sell-off.

An official responsible for an IT contracting error which cost the Ministry of Defence (MoD) £70m is no longer working for the department, its permanent secretary Jon Thompson told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on 16 June​.

Civil servants must give ministers “the most challenging advice”, because ministers “absolutely want to be told” what will and won’t work, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said today.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg today told an audience of civil servants that ministers have a “duty to acknowledge and respect your role as the backbone of the public infrastructure, that has to survive the ebb and flow as governments come and go.”

Lord O’Donnell, former head of the civil service, has dismissed as “silly” suggestions that permanent secretaries should only serve the “priorities of the government of the day”, rather than balancing them against the long-term aims of their department.

Civil servants have today joined a massive cross-public sector strike against austerity measures.

Civil servants responsible for running major projects will be able to tell parliament when ministers directed them to make particular decisions, under proposals published by the government.

The government’s reluctance to devolve powers away from London has given a boost to the campaign for Scottish independence, Graham Allen, chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, has said.