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Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary, has set up streamlined governance
arrangements for the Civil Service with a quarterly Permanent Secretaries
Management Group meeting to discuss Civil Service wide issues and a
smaller and more frequent Civil Service Steering Board addressing key
challenges which will be identified by a series of sub–groups.
Civil Service numbers: there are 15,910 fewer Civil Servants than a year
ago and numbers will continue to fall under current plans.
Over half of the heads of government departments are new appointments,
with sixteen appointed by Gus O'Donnell since September 2005
Fifteen departmental Capability Reviews have now been published covering
nearly 80 per cent of the Civil Service. The Capability Review programme
is part of the wider Civil Service reform agenda. It will lead to a Civil
Service which is better at delivering public services by improving the
capability of the Civil Service to meet today's delivery objectives
and be ready for the challenges of tomorrow.
Professional Skills for Government (PSG), a programme to enable civil
servants to develop the skills and experience needed to design and
deliver 21st century services, is in place for all senior levels (at and
above Grade 7). Since April 2006, departments have been implementing PSG
for all other civil servants.
The first ever Civil Service awards ceremony was held in November 2006 to
celebrate the pride, pace, passion and professionalism demonstrated by
teams and individuals from across government who have made a real
difference to people's lives.
The first ever Civil Service Diversity and Equality Awards took place in
October 2006 to recognise the outstanding achievements of civil servants
at all levels in the field of diversity and equality excellence
Civil Service pensions – new civil servants from 30 July 2007 will have a
pension age of 65 and pensions based on earnings throughout their career.
Current civil servants will keep their existing final salary pension
terms and pension age of 60. The Government has announced plans to share
future cost increases between employers and staff.
Civil Service diversity targets – the proportion of women in top
management posts and minority ethnic staff in the Senior Civil Service
has doubled since 1998. While we have made good progress in recent years,
we know we have further to go. We have targets to achieve by 2008 to
improve the proportion of women in top management posts, women in the
Senior Civil Service, ethnic minority staff and disabled people in the
Senior Civil Service
We have launched ‘Leaders Unlimited’ – a corporate diversity development
programme aimed at realising the management potential of women, black and
minority ethnic staff, and staff with disabilities.
Following a three month consultation, Cabinet Office issued an updated
Civil Service Code in June 2006 which sets out in straightforward
language the core values of the Civil Service and the behaviours expected
of civil servants. The first Civil Service Code was issued 10 years ago
Government Skills, the central government sector skills council covering
the Civil Service, Non Departmental Public Bodies and the Armed Forces,
launched in February 2006. It leads skills development in the sector to
improve public service delivery.
A new cross civil service leadership group has been established,
comprising of the top 200 civil servants, to provide corporate leadership
for the Civil Service and wider public sector.
