| Summary
The work of the Civil Service affects every British citizen. It performs many of its tasks admirably, despite enormous challenges of delivery in a world of increasing public expectations. Civil servants are extremely committed. Yet there remains a perception that it is not effective enough for the tasks it faces. The decision to carry out Capability Reviews of each department suggests that the senior leaders of the Civil Service shared that perception—and the subsequent findings of those reviews suggest that they were right. The Government clearly agrees that the skills of the service need to be improved.
There are several methods which can be used to boost an organisation's skills, ranging from increasing training provision and encouraging staff to seek professional qualifications to fast-tracking talent or buying it in from outside. The Government is trying all of these. In the last few years it has developed the Professional Skills for Government programme to create a more "professional" Civil Service, established a Sector Skills Council to define the organisation's skills needs and develop vocational qualifications, and launched a National School of Government. Meanwhile, it continues to manage the Senior Civil Service and Fast Stream centrally, providing special support to current and future leaders, and recruitment from outside the Civil Service also continues apace.
This Report considers the appropriateness of these approaches to meeting the challenges of managing the modern Civil Service. It concludes that the various programmes lack overall coherence. There should be a clear focus on the organisation growing its own talent, and the service could do more here. Departments should get central aid and encouragement to run internal fast-track schemes, and to equip their staff with suitable vocational or academic qualifications to allow considered workforce planning. The Capability Reviews testify that at the moment the Civil Service may not have analysed the skills it needs. More work needs to be done on this, linked to the findings of the Capability Reviews. As the leaders of the Civil Service, ministers should be involved in defining its skills and capability needs.
At the moment, the value of external recruitment to improving the Civil Service may be overemphasised. Unless it is targeted correctly, bringing in outsiders can cause as many problems as it solves. As a rule, external recruitment should not be taking place at the highest echelons of the service, and should not focus predominantly on the private sector. The emphasis on headcount reductions in the Gershon efficiency programme can also sometimes militate against the Government's pursuit of improved Civil Service skills.
Successful skills policies need central vision and drive, and positive performance management. The Cabinet Office needs a much more effective corporate development function to lead and enforce change across the whole Civil Service. There should be a closer connection between skills policies and work to increase departments' capabilities, and skills drives should be backed by a clear ministerial commitment at least equivalent to the commitment shown towards Civil Service efficiency savings. As part of that ministerial commitment, there should be a continuation of the recent expansion in ministerial training and development, and this should be visible. As departmental leaders, ministers should embody a culture of continuing professional development.
Civil Service performance would also benefit from more systematic and rigorous external scrutiny. Just as the National Audit Office looks at financial performance, there should be a similar body looking at more general performance issues. We propose a National Performance Office, helping Parliament and its Committees hold the Government to account. This new office also ought to take on the role of managing future Capability Reviews. We do not doubt the rigour of the reviews so far, and indeed we welcome them as a worthwhile innovation which ought to be repeated regularly; but there is a clear conflict of interest in allowing them to be run by central government. Future reviews ought to be independent of the Civil Service, to allow the benchmarking of progress towards a Civil Service fully equipped to meet the challenges of government today.
| 
