Civil servants told to break down old ways of doing things

3 Apr 08
Around 6,000 civil servants at all levels this week heard Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell outline a renewed drive for Whitehall reform and a skills strategy for department staff.

04 April 2008

Around 6,000 civil servants at all levels this week heard Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell outline a renewed drive for Whitehall reform and a skills strategy for department staff.

O'Donnell, hosting Civil Service Live at the QEII centre in London, said the three-day event was about civil servants being entrepreneurial and taking managed risks, 'to break down the old ways of doing things'.

He said: 'The civil service is working within an ever-changing environment to deliver public services to a diverse range of users. It will be challenged to do more with less and to respond to an evolving and competitive global market.'

Speaking at the event, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: 'The countries that are going to succeed in the future are those which find a way of bringing out the talent, the creativity and the potential, and all the educational abilities of all the people.'

Brown said the three-year spending plans would not change, but public services needed to be customised to meet people's needs and requirements.

The event was used to launch the Building Professional Skills for Government strategy, a cross-department initiative to close skills gaps, which will lead to the creation of 500 additional apprenticeships within departments.

A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services union said questions remained about where resources would come from to implement new ideas.

'The other issue is around

pay,' he added. 'You need a well-motivated workforce to really take reform forward and the current climate of below-inflation pay is doing very little for the majority of staff to do that.'

 

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