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Public Administration Committee to review work of the Civil Service
The PACAC has launched a new inquiry into the effectiveness of the Civil Service which will assess, amongst other things, its skills and structure
On Tuesday, the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) announced a new inquiry to review the effectiveness of the Civil Service.
This new, wide-ranging inquiry will look at how the Government can continue its drive to make the Civil Service more economic and faster in delivering services to the public. Specifically, the PACAC hearing will explore the following topics:
· The structure and organisation of the Civil Service, and how appropriate this is for the 21st Century;
· The effectiveness of the Civil Service in delivering Government policy, and how well it learns from success and from failure;
· The Civil Service’s collective capabilities and civil servants’ individual skills;
· Risks to Civil Service impartiality.
techUK has worked with Government to address a number of these points, especially those relating to the Civil Service’s skills and capability and its ability to learn the lessons of programme failure.
We recently held a senior roundtable with the National Audit Office on what the Government can learn from recent IT project failures, and we will be carrying out further work around this topic later this year.
Addressing the digital skills shortage is a key focus for techUK, both in the public sector and beyond. Last year, in a survey of nearly 1,000 civil servants, having access to the right skills internally emerged as the key factor for driving better value from Government’s IT spend. This survey informed our Top Four Priorities for Delivering Better Services Through Tech, which, amongst other things, called on Government to develop better skills internally.
Welcoming this new inquiry, Naureen Khan, Associate Director for Public Sector, said,
“Given the impact that tech has across Government, especially in the delivery of public services and cost savings, it is important to review how well the Civil Service is equipped for adopting innovation and change."
“We therefore welcome the PACAC’s inquiry, which we hope will shed light on the key areas that the Civil Service must prioritise for providing better services to citizens.”
techUK looks forward to working with the Committee on this important enquiry.
