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The distinction between different kinds of public servants hinders public sector collaboration. It is time to end it, says former Whitehall permanent secretary Lord Michael Bichard.

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The Commission for Smart Government has called for the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury to set up a joint “Office of Strategy, Resources and Performance” to better support the prime minister and improve planning and delivery.

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An ambitious programme for government reform, to ensure the country builds back better from COVID-19 has been launched by ministers and civil servants today. The programme will ensure that the government has the tools and resources it needs to deliver on its agenda to level up across the UK.

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Boris Johnson is creating a new delivery unit in 10 Downing Street to ramp up policy implementation, following the recommendations of a review by Sir Michael Barber.

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A commission set up to drive reform across Whitehall has dismissed HM Treasury’s Spending Review process a “political scrap over who gets the biggest budget” and called for a complete overhaul of the way government manages its money.

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In Reform’s Resilient State essay collection, I reflected on my experiences as a local government leader during the Covid-19 crisis. Whitehall had reverted to type, and gripped departmental levers to try and tackle complex problems rooted in local places. I argued that ‘the centre cannot hold’ and that we needed to think differently.

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Giving local government more power isn’t a zero-sum game for central government. It can help the civil service improve as well. The authors of the new Commission for Smart Government paper ‘Smart Devolution to Level Up’ look at how devolution could be the missing ingredient of the government’s efforts to reform Whitehall.

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The appointment of new digital leadership is a welcome start to what – if the UK is to thrive in a post-Covid, post-Brexit world – must become a wholesale reboot of digital government.

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In a year when the Covid pandemic has rocked the machinery of government and tested the civil service’s ability to deliver for the nation, we should welcome the appointment of Simon Case as the new Cabinet Secretary.

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The recent A-Levels fiasco, in which thousands of school leavers were denied a place at their chosen university, was blamed on a “mutant algorithm” by the Prime Minister — a freak of nature accidentally released to roam the country’s classrooms, threatening to ruin everyone’s exams results until stopped in its tracks.

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Thousands of young people have realised that the phrase “computer says no” isn’t just a Little Britain joke; it’s real life in modern-day UK as a computer programme has taken over the role of exams and teachers, and determined their A-level (and likely their GCSE) results — with disastrous consequences for many. Their protests against government-by-algorithm has lead to a very human U-turn but it highlights the need for government to become much savvier about the use of modern technology in public services.

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The academics Drechsler and Kattel recently observed, “If Winston Churchill came walking down Whitehall to his old office, he would not need much updating on how the system worked”. For some of us who have long argued the need for reform, that is a painful observation, so why should we expect things to change now? There are two good reasons.

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The coronavirus crisis has renewed the need for a radical overhaul of the way Whitehall operates, according to a new commission consisting of business leaders, MPs and former government officials.

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Whitehall reform used to be a minority preoccupation. Almost no-one bothered about it. Average politicians didn’t realise there was a problem. Better ministers thought nothing was wrong that couldn’t be righted through their brilliance. The civil service reassured itself that it was world class. All was well on the ship of state. Covid changed all that.

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