By Tash Shifrin
16 July 2009
A shake-up of the way Whitehall departments are assessed has been announced by the head of the civil service.
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell launched a revised model of the government’s capability reviews and a new assessment framework.
Giving the Audit Commission’s annual lecture at the Treasury on July 15, O’Donnell said: ‘I want to be sure that departments continue to improve their capability to meet future challenges. And those challenges will be considerable.’
The government faced issues such as climate change and an ageing population, O’Donnell said, adding: ‘Growth in public expenditure will need to be lower than we have seen in the past decade.’
This meant the way civil service capability was assessed had ‘to evolve and remain relevant’, he said.
The new assessment model emphasised innovation, collaboration and delivery of results, O’Donnell said. He added: ‘Innovation is not an end itself... By adopting new and innovative approaches to some of our most stubborn policy and delivery issues we will, ultimately, create better services and provide even better value for money.’
A Cabinet Office document outlining the new reviews said improving capability must be a way of achieving better outcomes for the citizen. In future, the assessments would ‘give a clearer emphasis on results and outcomes to mirror the focus they currently give to leadership, strategy and delivery’.
In the light of the economic downturn, the reviews would also ‘challenge departments more rigorously to demonstrate that the need to achieve value for money underpins everything they do’.
16 July 2009
A shake-up of the way Whitehall departments are assessed has been announced by the head of the civil service.
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell launched a revised model of the government’s capability reviews and a new assessment framework.
Giving the Audit Commission’s annual lecture at the Treasury on July 15, O’Donnell said: ‘I want to be sure that departments continue to improve their capability to meet future challenges. And those challenges will be considerable.’
The government faced issues such as climate change and an ageing population, O’Donnell said, adding: ‘Growth in public expenditure will need to be lower than we have seen in the past decade.’
This meant the way civil service capability was assessed had ‘to evolve and remain relevant’, he said.
The new assessment model emphasised innovation, collaboration and delivery of results, O’Donnell said. He added: ‘Innovation is not an end itself... By adopting new and innovative approaches to some of our most stubborn policy and delivery issues we will, ultimately, create better services and provide even better value for money.’
A Cabinet Office document outlining the new reviews said improving capability must be a way of achieving better outcomes for the citizen. In future, the assessments would ‘give a clearer emphasis on results and outcomes to mirror the focus they currently give to leadership, strategy and delivery’.
In the light of the economic downturn, the reviews would also ‘challenge departments more rigorously to demonstrate that the need to achieve value for money underpins everything they do’.
