civil service Articles

Opposition is pretty grim – and five years of it does not make it any easier. Our senior parliamentary representatives have to spend their days responding to other people’s ideas and doing their best to mitigate the worst of Tory proposals. Sometimes a timely and...

Civil service reform. We rarely hear about it on the doorstep. But we hear very clearly the consequences of an ineffective Whitehall machine, and strained public services. That is why, even in the run-up to a tightly fought general election, Labour must not cede the...

Michael Dugher’s speech to the Institute for Government this week was a historic moment. Never before has a Labour shadow civil service minister set out from opposition such a clear analysis of the challenges in the effectiveness and capability of the machinery of...

This week’s dramatic reshuffle has inevitably focused on the ups and downs of Conservative careers – the surprise departure of William Hague and the shock demotion of Michael Gove, alongside a clutch of ministerial promotions and casualties. Less noticed but in some...