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In a report published today, Tuesday 17 March 2015, the Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) says that gaps in civil service skills have caused very costly failures and without an honest appraisal of where weaknesses lie to enable real improvements, further failures such as the cancellation of the West Coast Mainline franchise competition are “unavoidable”. The Committee says it is essential that any central audit of Civil Service skills is both open and honest, and short-term presentational gains must not be given preference over long-term cost for the taxpayer.

• Report: Developing Civil Service Skills: a unified approach
• Report: Developing Civil Service Skills: a unified approach (PDF)
• Inquiry: Developing Civil Service Skills
• Public Administration Select Committee

The report uses the West Coast Mainline franchise competition as a case study for the way procurement and bidding processes have sometimes been mishandled by the Civil Service, many parts of which currently operate under severe resourcing constraints. PASC has previously reported on major procurement failures in areas like Government IT.

The Committee has identified a central problem whereby under financial constraints, senior civil servants who leave the Service are not replaced, with the loss of key experience in for example procurement and tendering, leaving remaining staff to negotiate with external tenderers with far more experience of bidding and competition processes.

In 2013 the Government published its Capabilities Plan, described by the Cabinet Office as a key part of the Government’s overall Reform Plan. The stated purpose of this plan was to transform the Civil Service into a high-skilled, high-performance organisation that’s less bureaucratic and more focused on delivering results.

In this report, the Committee concludes:

• the Cabinet Office should have a standardised framework for auditing departmental skills levels and that the National Audit Office should be invited to carry out a Civil Service wide skills audit on a regular basis.
• the National School of Government need not be re-established but PASC supports the establishment of a new Civil Service Leadership Academy to address the unique challenges faced by public sector service leaders which conventional business training cannot address, and to serve as a nucleus for civil service reform.
• the focus on the four key skills highlighted in the Capabilities Plan is welcome but the development of the key skills that are the focus of the Capabilities Plan will be undermined if the maintenance and development of key complementary and supportive skills are neglected and allowed to erode
• there is still a lack of clear leadership in the Civil Service, with senior civil servants’ leadership constrained by the need to subordinate their own leadership to that of the Minister, making Civil Service leadership complicated and potentially confusing. The Committee says it is vital to address this, no matter how sensitive and difficult it may be
• the Chief Executive of the Civil Service John Manzoni should be made clearly accountable for understanding the current leadership skills provision across all departments, driving improvements in it and ensuring that the approach is coherent, efficient and effective
• warnings that skills at mid-management levels are being significantly hollowed out are worrying:  the Pivotal Role Allowance, intended to retain key people, is clearly a token gesture and not a sufficient response to this challenge
• Government should ensure that its policy on Civil Service pay can ensure that funds are used efficiently to prevent needless loss of expensively gained skills and knowledge which it will struggle to replace
• the National Audit Office should carry out a value for money study of Civil Service Learning

Bernard Jenkin, Chair of the Committee said:

“With the continued focus on best-value tendering and efficiently maximising severely constrained resources, it is ever more essential that the Civil Service has the skills to manage and negotiate on an equal basis with the wide range of players that now deliver public services and major infrastructure projects. The very kinds of efficiencies and excellence that we are trying build into project and service delivery must exist within the Civil Service itself to realise these goals. Short term presentational gains and savings are a false economy if key skills are not developed, or existing skills that were expensively acquired are lost.

Conventional business training cannot address the unique challenges faced in the public sector: the new Civil Service Leadership Academy needs to provide a unique focus on the key skills – and complementary and supportive skills across Whitehall – required by a modern Civil Service if it is to deliver its leaders’ vision.”

Further information

• About Parliament: Select Committees
• Visiting Parliament: watch Committees