In order to deliver on its priorities, the UK's civil service needs to manage its workforce more effectively, tackle damaging levels of staff turnover, reform pay structures and recruitment processes, access and utilise the full range of expertise outside of government, and open itself up to more challenge and scrutiny. This paper sets out 20...

The UK's Commission on the Centre of Government's final report recommends that No.10 and the Cabinet Office be merged to form a new Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to enable more strategic control at the centre of government.

Any successful reform plan needs leaders across government to be invested in it. The authors of this paper argue that constructing an overarching narrative, publishing success criteria, and making it clear who is accountable for achieving them would be a good first step towards achieving this.

This report recognises the UK civil service’s vital role, but warns that it has been weakened by high-profile policy and operational failures, like the Kabul evacuation and pandemic contingency plans, and damaged by the Downing Street 'partygate' fallout.

The civil service is central to government in the United Kingdom. But it lacks a clear identity, defined responsibilities and a system of oversight and accountability. This report proposes a new statutory role for the civil service to reflect its permanence, values and objectives, and how it should be run and held to account.