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Last updated: 14 December 2009
CAB 114-09
14 December 2009
The Civil Service has shown it continues to improve its capability as it prepares to tackle the challenges of the coming decade, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell said today.
Sir Gus was speaking as the Cabinet Office published an overview of the Capability Review programme, which was introduced in 2005 to assess departments’ ability to meet current and future challenges.
This report marks the completion of a full set of re-reviews for all of the major government departments.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, said:
“When I launched the Capability Review programme, nothing like it had been attempted in Whitehall before. It represented a real breakthrough in openness and accountability and I am delighted that, four years on, the programme has not only been delivered successfully but has also driven real improvement and reform across the Civil Service.
“But there is no room for complacency – we have much more to do. We have now refreshed the review model to put a focus on innovation, efficiency and delivery, and in future the Capability Review approach will be extended to key arms-length bodies.”
The fifth tranche of reviews and re-reviews was also published today. The Treasury and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) were both re-reviewed, while the year-old Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) underwent a baseline assessment. The Serious Fraud Office was also reviewed after its managers saw how the review process had helped central government departments improve. The Treasury and HMRC have both shown an overall improvement, despite the pressures of the global economic downturn. DECC has had successes in its first year and the SFO is being transformed rapidly.
Review teams comprise members drawn from the private sector, the wider public sector and board level members of other government departments.
Peter Ellwood CBE, chairman of FTSE 100 company Rexam PLC and one of the private sector reviewers, said:
“I have been actively involved in the Capability Review Programme from the beginning. As an external reviewer for the original round of reviews, for a 12 month assurance assessment and again in a recent two-year review, I have seen how the programme has developed and the very positive and receptive way in which a review is genuinely used by a government department to deliver real improvement in its capability.”
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