Operational Delivery

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) have now moved their digital Vehicle Management service to private beta.

Changes were made last month to how civil servants give evidence to select committees.

The way arm’s-length government is structured and held to account was branded “confused” and “opaque” in a Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) report today, and the Cabinet Office was called upon to bring clarity to how these bodies and organisations work within the civil service.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) flood defence resources are limited and current spending is “insufficient to meet many of the maintenance needs” identified by the Environment Agency (EA), the National Audit Office (NAO) said today.

Katherine Kerswell has criticised the Department for Communities & Local Government (DCLG) for attacking local authorities over parking fees.

Tax evasion is the biggest cause of the UK tax gap, not big-business tax avoidance, and it needs to be tackled, director of Tax Research UK Richard Murphy said yesterday at a conference on taxation.

The government needs to bridge the tax gap and collect what it’s owed from tax-avoiding big businesses, Margaret Hodge MP said today.

The Home Office’s system of recording and assessing immigration and customs allegations is improving Home Office results but needs further work, said the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration’s report last week. 

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced plans to further reduce the number of staff and offices in a bid to reduce the size and number of locations used by the department.

By chance, two service delivery heavyweights have shared a single message. Ministers and officials alike should listen up

HM Passport Office will be abolished and its operations absorbed by the Home Office from 1 October, it has been announced today, and the organisation’s chief executive Paul Pugh will be replaced by a newly-appointed director general.

There is “unfinished business” in civil service reform, former head of the civil service Sir Bob Kerslake said yesterday – including devolving powers away from Whitehall, and breaking down departmental structures. 

Paul Pugh, chief executive of the Passport Office, has been accused of a “complete management failure” by the Home Affairs Select Committee. In a report published today, the committee calls for the office to be abolished and its functions to be returned to the direct control of ministers.

The Public Accounts Committee has warned the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) that it lacks the data to ensure that local authorities are receiving “value for money with their funding” in some targeted grant schemes.

The Home Office has managed to absorb the former UK Border Agency back into the Department without a significant fall in performance, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report published today.

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.

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

A whip round June's interesting committee reports and hearings, with Winnie Agbonlahor

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. 

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​.

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.