Civil Service: Is a Hard Rain really gonna fall?

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Reforming the Civil Service is the biggest of Big Asks. Can Dominic Cummings pull off his radical plans in the middle of a once-in-a-century health crisis? And do we need fewer “fixers” who change jobs a lot, and more long-term experts? Plus, the Russia Report: what went wrong in protecting the integrity of our elections? Who should feel most embarrassed: Government, security services or civil servants? And what should be done next? “Framing Civil Service reform as ‘us against them’ is not going to encourage civil servants to give their best advice.” – Alex Thomas “Civil Service reform is quite nerdy so it’s unusual for politicians to give it such attention.” – Cath Haddon Presented by Bronwen Maddox with the IfG’s Alex Thomas, Cath Haddon and Emma Norris. Audio production by Alex Rees ENDS See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.
0:14.0	I'm Bronwyn Maddox.
0:15.0	Boris Johnson has been in government for exactly one year.
0:19.0	He's won a landslide majority. He's taken the country
0:21.0	out of the European Union, and he's faced the worst peacetime crisis in living memory. Alongside
0:26.0	coronavirus, the race to agree a deal with the EU about the UK's future relationship and trying
0:31.5	to return to his pledge to level up the UK, his government has also made a lot of noise about its
0:36.8	plans to reform the civil service.
0:39.1	Why? Of all the things that people are talking and railing about the civil service is not one.
0:44.0	Is it the key to unlocking all his other aims, or is it going to be a distraction?
0:47.7	We're going to look at how actually to change this 150-year-old public institution.
0:52.5	What does the government really need to do? What must it absolutely
0:55.3	try to avoid? And after much delay from the government, the intelligence and security committee's
1:00.7	report into the Russian threat facing the UK has finally been released. Will this heavily redacted
1:06.0	report change things? And with an uneasy relationship, and that's been kind, between the
1:10.4	government and
1:10.8	conservative MPs, what can Parliament do to hold ministers to account?
1:15.3	Joining me in our virtual studio to discuss all this, we have a great line-up.
1:19.1	Emma Norris is our Director of Research.
1:20.7	Hi, Emma.
1:21.9	Hi, Brian.
1:23.2	Alex Thomas, Program Director for our Civil Service work, who's had an awful lot to do this
	...

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